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>£- r THE 

SILK RAISER'S MANUAL; ^/jfr 

THE ART OF /tr+j£jf 

RAISING AND FEEDING SILK WORMS ' 



CULTIVATING THE MULBERRY TREE, 



BY M. MORIN, 

MEMBER OF SEVERAL LEARNED SOCIETIES. 






TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH. 



BOSTON : 

MARSH, CAPEN & LYON. 

1836. 



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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1836, by 

MARSH, CAPEN & LYON, 
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. 



^if/V 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 



The present volume, it has been thought, may prove 
a valuable acquisition to persons engaging in raising 
silk in this country. Chapters 2d and 3d, in particular, 
have much useful information, not to be found in all 
the treatises. Chapters 4th, 6th, 8th, and 9th, also 
treat of matters necessary to be known, and of daily 
use in raising silk worms. 

The book enumerates and describes many varieties 
of the mulberry, and explains the qualities of each, 
which make it more or less adapted to the health of 
the worm, and the production of silk of best quality 
and in largest quantity. 

It also contains a very full and detailed explanation 
of the process of hatching, feeding, and taking care of 
the worms; drawing precepts on these heads, chiefly 
from experiments, made, from time to time, by persons 
experienced and skilful in the business; particularly 
using as authority on these points, the statements of 
Count Dandolo, relating to experiments made by him. 

The plan laid down by the writer for the treatment 
of the worms, I know, has not been altogether approved 
in this country: and it is said they have been raised 
here with success on a different plan; that is, without 
regard to the careful maintenance of a high tempera- 
ture in the atelier, and even exposing them to the 
changes of atmosphere. If any feel safe in pursuing 



IV TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 

such a treatment, this chapter of M. Morin's book may 
be disregarded. They will no doubt find much infor- 
mation on other points connected with the business. 
But it is respectfully suggested, whether experiment 
has sufficiently tested the advantage or, inutility of this 
course, in this country. It may be true, that in small 
establishments the worms have succeeded under a dif- 
ferent course. But the evaporation of moisture from 
the worms, which is the chief source of disease, by 
contaminating the air, might not be great enough to 
prove fatal in a small colony of 1000, or of one ounce, 
when in a colony of several hundred thousands it 
would inevitably produce the death of all. It may 
therefore be very questionable whether in large estab- 
lishments it may be safe to disregard the precautions 
which foreign writers well skilled in the business have 
considered essential to be observed. And, therefore, 
whether fires be not necessary as purifiers of the 
atmosphere, though the worms have been found to 
thrive in a low degree of heat. 



INTRODUCTION. 



In searching into the different authors, who have 
treated of caterpillars, and particularly of the silk 
worm, we find the following description of him in the 
Dictionnaire d'histoire naturelle of Latreille. ' c Under 
the family of nocturnals, having for their character- 
istics, wings entire, spread horizontally or sloping, 
and forming a triangle with their body; edge of the 
superior straight, and without curve at the base; up- 
per antennulae concealed, very short, in form of tuber- 
cles in some, and nearly cylindrical or nearly conical, 
diminishing gradually in thickness toward their ex- 
tremity, in others: tongue none, or indistinct: anten- 
nae pectinated, or in form of a saw, at least in the 
males: caterpillars in the greatest number with six- 
teen feet; the two posterior wanting in others, and 
replaced -by two appendages resembling a forked tail." 

But as these abridged details have appeared to us 
insufficient in the manual that we propose to publish, 
we have had recourse to the work of M. Dandolo, 
with which we have long been acquainted by the 
translation made of it. We there find, on caterpillars 
and silk worms, the following general description: — 

" In all caterpillars the body is long, more or less 
cylindrical, formed, in its length ; of twelve membran- 
ous parallel rings, which, in the motion of the animal, 
1* 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

alternately stretch and contract. They all have a 
scaly head, of a substance similar to horn, furnished 
with two very strong jaws formed like a saw, which 
move horizontally, and not up and down, as among 
warm-blooded animals. Under the jaws is placed the 
silk vessel, by means of which each caterpillar pro- 
duces the silky matter. They have never less than 
eight feet, and not more than sixteen. The six first, 
of a scaly substance like that of the head, are fixed 
under the three first rings, and cannot lengthen nor 
contract sensibly. The others, of which the number 
may be two, four, six, eight, or ten, are membranous, 
flexible, and attached two by two to the posterior part 
of the body, under the rings which correspond to them. 
These last feet are those which transport the animal. 
They are armed with small hooks, sufficiently strong, 
proper to fix them easily, and enable them to climb. 
All the hinder feet disappear, whatever the kind of 
caterpillar, when it is changed into a moth or papilio, 
and only the six first then remain, which are differ- 
ently modified. The orifice is placed under the last 
ring. 

"The caterpillars breathe by means of eighteen 
openings, situated nine on each side of the body, by 
which the air enters, and goes out. Each of these 
openings is considered as the end of a distinct wind- 
pipe. Many caterpillars have eyes: some are wholly 
without sight, but they acquire it in the state of papi- 
lios. Many have the skin smooth: such is the silk 
worm, called also bombyx, a species of the order of 
lepidopteres, family of nocturnals, of the tribe or sub- 
division bombicites, of which the largest number spin 
a silky cocon, which has given them the name of spin- 
ning phalaense (moths). Whatever the number of 
similar insects comprized under this denomination, it 
is the silk worm only, bombyx mori, to whose changes 
all these observations relate, since he has become of 
great importance, on account of the beauty of his co- 
cons, the fineness and strength of the threads they 
make, and the prodigious increase he has given to 



INTRODUCTION. Vll 

commercial dealings among all the people of the 
known world. 

" The particular characteristic of caterpillars is to 
change their skin at least three times before arriving 
at the period when they shed the silk they contain, in 
order to be transformed into a chrysalis in the cocon 
or envelop that they have formed. In the greatest 
number this change takes place only three or four 
times; in others, from five to nine. It is called moult- 
ing, and often causes the death of a great number. 

" The skin, in an animal that in a very short time 
increases a thousand fold its weight, would hardly be 
able to distend itself to the point to cover him en- 
tirely; but nature in her providence has extended 
over the body of the caterpillar the embryos of the 
skin of each moulting, which supply also the hairs or 
prickles with which many kinds are abundantly clothed. 
The animal increasing more than his skin can distend 
itself, it falls off, and is replaced by the second, which 
is more soft; this is detached in the same manner as 
the first, and is soon followed by a third, a fourth, 
and so on. At this period of the life of the caterpillar, 
nature excites in it a favorable crisis. He transudes 
from the surface of his body a humor which is inter- 
posed between the old and the new skin, and facili- 
tates the passage of his body. The surface of the 
animal is then moist. After the last moulting each 
species of the caterpillar sheds its silk, and forms 
with it the cocon, or entrenchment in which the trans- 
formation to a chrysalis is to take place, and thence 
into a moth, the perfect animal which produces the 
eggs from which the caterpillars come, the greatest 
number of which subsist by devouring a considerable 
quantity of vegetable substances, the most of them 
serviceable to the wants of man. The manner in 
which they sustain their transient existence, that 
which they employ to preserve their embryo, the influ- 
ence of the warm season in making them hatch nearly 
all at once, in developing them, in changing them to 
chrysales in the cocons, and bringing them finally to 



Vlll INTRODUCTION. 

the form of moths, would carry us into details useless 
as to the silk worms, which only interest us here." 

si The last moulting being accomplished, the silk 
worm eats, in a certain number of days, a quantity of 
food almost incredible, and comes to his greatest point 
of growth. Arrived at this point his appetite abates, 
and erases entirely. He then loses sensibly, by 
little and little, his weight and bulk. Disrelishing 
his food he seeks to change his place, to isolate, and 
put himself to repose. He perceives the necessity of 
voiding all excremental matters with which his vessels 
are filled, and even the membrane that envelopes 
them, and that serves, if we may so speak, for the lin- 
ing of the stomach, and intestine. There then re- 
mains nothing of the animal but the silky matter, with 
more or loss water. 

" It is in this manner that the formation of the chry- 
salis is prepared, which is not accomplished till all the 
silk is shed, or the wrinkled exuviffi of the animal is 
separated in the cocon. And the quantity of silk 
generally furnished by the worms is not always in 
proportion to their bulk, for it is the middling sized 
that give more of it than all others. Finally comes 
the change into the perfect animal. The moth comes 
from his envelope. The males secrete the fluid that 
fecundates the eggs in the body of the females. The 
moth leaves in the interior of the perforated cocon all 
the membranes with which she was enveloped. The 
coupling follows immediately their coming out, and 
in proportion as the eggs are % deposited by the fe- 
male where the coupling has been, they lose, little by 
little, their natural vigor, and, this function accomplish- 
ed, they both die. 

<c To end these general remarks, we add, that it is 
actually known, that, notwithstanding the immense 
quantity of caterpillars that appear every year in the 
spiing, there are many means marked out by nature, 
to destroy a part of them, besides those that are in 
the hands of man. An immense number of birds eat 
them wherever they meet them, when they are hardly 



INTRODUCTION. IX 

out of the egg, and when full grown: the reptiles do 
not spare them: the cold kills them: and during win- 
ter, man, watchful to preserve his property, may easily 
search them out, destroy them, and consume them 
wholly hy the fire. For this there is need only of an 
echenilloir (rig. 1); and if he have waited too long, 
and they are hatched and scattered over the tree, he 
uses a warmer, or other vessel (fig. 2.), of casting or 
brass, in which he burns straw, sprinkled with sulphur, 
and which he raises, according to the height of the 
leaves, where need requires. This fumigation be- 
numbs them, so that nothing more is necessary but to 
shake the branches, to make them fall, and easily de- 
stroy all that were fixed there." 

But the most valuable of all the caterpillars is, with- 
out contradiction, the silk-worm, concerning which we 
propose to give all that is of common practice in the 
mode of raising them, either as an object of agricul- 
tural industry, or of commercial speculation; and if in 
this manual we do not seek to relate all that a special 
treatise on the particular treatment of them might do, 
we shall endeavor, in some sort, to omit nothing, and 
shall not pass without notice any details necessary for 
the direction of any one who intends to occupy him- 
self with raising them: we shall endeavor to make 
known to him all that may facilitate the changes of 
age of the silk worm; that is to say, the moulting: all 
that may be capable of hastening his growth, and de- 
velopment from the moment when he is hatched, to 
that when he becomes a papilio, the end of his exist- 
ence. We shall leave to the raiser all that particu- 
lar localities may make necessary in the multitude of 
small details they may give occasion to. We shall 
speak, then, only of what is relative to the insect in 
order to obtain from him the most perfect of his pro- 
ducts, and especially to a proper treatment of them 
during the few days of their short life. This will only 
be propagating the advice already given by Bonnafous, 
Dandolo, Latreille, Loiseleur Deslongchamps, Rosier, 
and Sauvages, who, we think, have arrived at a 



X INTRODUCTION. 

theory in relation to silk worms, which is, in some 
sort, confirmed by experience. If our manual may 
serve to direct the raiser aright in all the cares and 
attentions necessary to the best manner of raising his 
silk worms, we shall have attained the true end of 
general and particular usefulness that we have pro- 
posed to ourselves in the collection of manuals already 
published on so many other subjects of general utility. 



CHAPTER I. 



OF SILK WORMS. 



Before being acclimated among us, before they 
were found among the products offered to most of the 
agricultural and laboring families, the silk worms were 
not known except in China, where they cultivated 
from time immemorial the art of raising them, either 
in the open air or on frames, for the purpose of reel- 
ing their cocons, to manufacture, from the silk produc- 
ed, all the stuffs necessary to the nature of the country. 
From thence they were exported to India; and by 
degrees the Asiatics, particularly the Tartars, the 
Persians and Arabians, became acquainted with this 
branch of industry. Some Indian priests, as we are 
assured, brought into Europe toward the beginning of 
the sixth century not only the eggs of the silk worm, 
but also the process of hatching them, of feeding 
them while in the state of worms, and of reeling their 
cocons. They established themselves at Constanti- 
nople, where the emperor Justinian made them an 
object of chief importance, capable of increasing the 
wealth of his people, who were then tributary to the 



12 

Arabians, by reason of the great quantity of silk 
stuffs they were obliged to buy of them. The en- 
couragement which he gave to this branch of industry 
covered Greece with mulberry trees, from whence 
they were transported into Spain, Italy, France, and 
every where, where they expected to be able, by 
means of this tree, to succeed in the raising of silk 
worms, especially with a view to the advantages to be 
derived from them, or of the certain profits of their 
produce. 

It was not till 1450, under the reign of Louis XI., 
that we saw mulberry trees appear, the silk worms, 
and men accustomed to raise them, whom this mon- 
arch had induced to come from Greece and Italy. 
In 1480 silk stuffs were made at Lyons and Tours. 
It is thence that those kinds came which w T ere dis- 
tinguished by the name of gros de Tours. In 1494, 
during the campaigns of Charles VIII., mulberry 
trees and silk worms were brought from Italy, which 
served much to give prosperity to the rich countries 
that border on the Rhone. Henry IV., in all the 
encouragements which he gave to industry, was one 
of the princes who most favored them, though his 
prime minister was far from agreeing with him. Un- 
der Louis XIII., they became entirely abandoned. 
Finally, Louis the Great appeared, and though his 
minister had begun badly, the premiums that he gave 
in the sequel to the planters of mulberry trees made 
them once more prosper, as well as the culture of the 
silkworms in all the southern provinces, and especially 
in Languedoc and Provence. Under Louis XV. and 
Louis XVI., and much more still during the first years 
of the revolution, the raising of silk worms in common 



13 

with all other branches of industry became paralyzed. 
Under the empire they had employment enough only 
to prevent being forgotten among other branches of 
manufactures: but now since the restoration, the 
habitations of the silk worm seem to have regained an 
importance and an increase much more considerable 
than they have had for a long time before. 

Like all other animals translated from distant 
countries the silk worm must necessarily undergo 
changes at first insensible, but which in course of time 
have given place to races if not new, at least sufficient- 
ly different from those of their first stock. However 
this may be, the species which has been acclimated 
in Europe presents some slight varieties in the 
worms and their cocons, but this must be attributed 
to accidental circumstances. Thence it is easy to 
account for the moultings which some experience 
three or four times, as well as for the largeness or 
smallness of the cocons. Finally, though subjected 
to a temperature very different from that whence it has 
come to us, though dependent as it were almost 
absolutely on the cares which ought to be liberally 
bestowed on it, the silk worm easily preserves a 
strength of resistance, capable not only of making 
him surmount the difference and the changes of cli- 
mate under which he is now bound among us, but 
even the dangers of the ignorance and of the unpar- 
donable errors of the greater part of those who are 
charged with the care of him; for almost always it is 
good fortune, if you do nothing more than lose in 
the quality or quantity of cocons, while much oftener 
the whole brood is the victim. Notwithstanding all 

that may have been said of the quantity of the crops 
2 



14 

of cocons that they have been used to make in Asia, 
although some are so bold as to assure us that they 
may be repeated once a month, and that they may 
also take place, without much trouble, at least twice 
in an ordinary year, in all our southern districts, this 
cannot be probable; and M. Dandolo, who, in what- 
ever he does, may furnish authority, considers the 
bisennial crops only as capable of entirely destroying 
the mulberry trees; for he assures us that the trees 
suffer already very much by being stripped once only. 
How would it be then if this should be done twice? 
Indeed, if, as the Persians generally do, they cut the 
young branches of the tree, in our climates, to give 
them to the silk worm, it will be impossible that the 
sap can be sufficiently strong and abundant to renew 
them quickly enough in Italy, as well as in France, 
as it has been accustomed to do under a climate of a 
much higher temperature. Allowing that the leaves, 
separated from the tree by the small boughs are pre- 
served more fresh, and may consequently better serve 
for the nourishment of the silk worm, it is nevertheless 
true that the crop of cocons that they obtain is not so 
great but that what we are used to gather would be 
nearly the same, in respect to its final result, that is 
to say in the quality and quantity of silk which we 
get from it. 

As in climates where the silk worm originates, its 
cocon is in ours also, most commonly of a straw 
color, more or less inclined to white or deepening 
toward the orange yellow: none have ever been met 
with that were red, blue, or greenish, and when even 
the insect which produces it will be himself colored 
even to the deepest black, spotted with spots more or 



15 

less large and deep, the cocons that he makes will be 
nevertheless of a whiteness equal to those of the 
others. Every where the heat of the silk worm is the 
same as that of the place where he is put. When the 
temperature is increased or diminished his own corres- 
ponds to that which surrounds him. Therefore the 
differences of climate through which he has to pass 
will not be hurtful to him: nor can he be considered 
more in the class of cold blooded animals, than of 
warm blooded; for he is neither one nor the other. 
Like all other caterpillars he is provided with a very 
great number of feet. We count in him ten which 
are membranous, and six which are scaly, accompanied 
with eighteen organs that serve for respiration. W T e 
perceive besides a great number of folds behind his 
head, accompanied with a small horn on the back part 
of their rings. Their two reservoirs of silk are of a 
white color, drawing toward grey as they are more 
distant from the single thread in which they terminate. 
It has been observed that even when suffering from 
hunger the silk worm never quits the mulberry leaf 
which served for his nourishment and where he is fixed: 
he remains there constantly attached, even when he has 
entirely stripped it. It is only in the first days after his 
birth, and when he has come to his maturity, or when 
he is sick, that he is seen to change places. During 
the whole of his short existence, he scarcely goes 
over a space of two or three feet at most. The 
duration of his whole life does not extend beyond 
sixty days, counting from the moment when he is 
hatched, up to that when he dies, after having deposit- 
ed his eggs; and if by means of warmth his appetite 
and all his functions are more active, his life passes 



16 

much more rapidly still. The more lively his enjoy- 
ments are, the sooner are they terminated. In many 
ateliers, (or coconeries) they are made, to come to 
cocons in the space of forty days; and though it is fre- 
quently necessary in consequence of bad seasons to 
prolong them some days in order that they may com- 
plete their nourishment, we may also see them finish it 
in thirty-five days by keeping them at a raised tempera- 
ture. But how much care, how many precautions is it 
necessary to take, that no damage may result, and ta 
guard against all the risks it will have to encounter. 



CHAP. IL 



FOOD OF SILK WORMS. 

It is now ascertained that only the leaves of the 
white or black mulberry can be used for the food of* 
the silk worm. The first kind is the morus alba, white 
mulberry, a tree, which, in the climate of Paris, and in 
all the south of France, grows to the height of 25 or 
30 feet, and in the southern parts of Europe as high 
as 40 and 50 feet, with a trunk from 6 to 8 feet in cir- 
cumference. Its shank is divided into numerous 
branches, thick, spreading, forming generally a top 
more or less rounded. Its leaves are petioled, oval, 
a little hollowed into the heart shape at the base, 
pointed at the summit, indented on the edges, always 



17 

or very often, according to the age of the tree, or ac- 
cording to its variety, divided into lobes more or less 
deep and irregular. Their upper surface is a shining 
green, perfectly smooth, and the under has some hairs 
set on its edges. Its flowers are monoichal; some, 
males, disposed in cylindrical chatons, supported on 
peduncles, longer than themselves: the others, fe- 
males, form round or oval chatons, rather short 
peduncles, which are succeeded by small berries of 
the same form, and of a red or white color. This 
kind, originally from China, is now cultivated and 
naturalized in the South of Europe, and also in many 
temperate countries in this part of the world. 

The careful culture of the white mulberry has pro- 
duced many varieties in this species. They are dis- 
tinguished particularly into the wild and grafted. The 
first comprises four sub-varieties; the first, called 
feuille-rose, (rose leaf,) bears a small white insipid fruit, 
and its leaf is rounded like the small leaf of a rose 
bush, but larger; the second la feuille doree, (the gold 
leafed,) has a small purple colored fruit, and an elonga- 
ted shining leaf; the third, la reine batarde, (bastard 
queen,) is distinguished by its black fruit, and by its 
leaves, which are twice as large as the rose leafed, in- 
dented in their circumference with the tooth at the 
superior extremity very much elongated to a point; 
the fourth is called femelle: the tree is thorny; it puts 
forth flowers before its leaves, which are divided into 
three lobes, like clover. 

In the grafted mulberry we distinguish also four 
varieties: the first is la reine, (the queen,) with leaves 
shining and larger than any of the wild; its fruit is 

ash-colored; the second, la grosse reine, (fat queen) 
2* 



18 

has leaves of a deep green, and a black fruit; the 
third, la feuille d'Espagne, (the Spanish leaf,) bears 
very large leaves, extremely rough and thick, and a 
long white berry; the fourth, la feuille de floes, (the 
woolly-leafed,) is of a deep green, very like the feuille 
d'Espagne, but less elongated and disposed in tufts on 
the boughs. Its fruit, very abundant, never comes to 
full maturity. 

However, as it is very difficult to distinguish the wild 
mulberry, as they grow no where in Europe sponta- 
neously, but we meet with them always cultivated, 
and the young plants that grow in the nurseries can- 
not be considered as wild specimens, since they come 
from seed obtained from trees that a long culture has 
more or less modified, and that they have themselves 
sometimes undergone new changes by the effects of the 
sun, and of the particular treatment which they have 
received in raising them — therefore it is, that in mul- 
berry trees raised from seed we observe differences 
more or less considerable in the thickness and size of 
the leaves, and in their habit of remaining entire or di- 
viding into lobes. And if these young trees were 
commonly not grafted before bearing fruit, we should 
find in them differences which might also serve to dis- 
tinguish them; but otherwise, they must create a new 
variety for each particular seed; for the varieties 
rarely are propagated without differing more or less 
from the trees whence the seed is taken. 

The only varieties of which it will be useful to 
make mention are those which, being propagated for 
a longer or shorter time from the seed, have been dis- 
tinguished as exhibiting remarkable characters or 
qualities, and which, therefore pains have been taken 



19 

to multiply by grafting on seedling plants in the nur- 
series, which are called wild stock. Such are the 
following: — 

Rose leafed mulberry, morus alba rosea. The tree 
is slender, with branches more extended than all the 
other grafted varieties. It may, however, attain a 
great height in the course of its life. Its wood is more 
solid and more compact; it approaches very nearly in 
its qualities to the wild stock. Its leaves are shining 
as if varnished, rarely lobed, borne on rose petioles; 
its fruit of a rose grey; its seed exhibiting some sub- 
varieties. 

Roman mulberry — morus alba ovalifolia, oval leafed 
mulberry. The tree is large, and grows rapidly; its 
leaves are large and handsome, shining on the upper 
surface, whole and sometimes divided into three or 
five lobes on young and vigorous stems; its berries 
are rose-grey, or lilac. This variety is most prevalent 
in Provence, in the environs of Avignon, and in great 
part of Languedoc. It enters into the plantations in 
eighteen twentieths, the rose leaf in one twentieth, 
the grosse-reine and other varieties for the rest. It is 
agreed, however, that the rose-leafed variety produces 
a leaf of superior quality, which gives a good silk; 
and we are assured also that the worms which are fed 
on it are less subject to diseases, especially to those 
caused by a leaf too moist, coming from a soil too fer- 
tile. Why then is not the rose-leafed mulberry culti- 
vated as much as it appears, on account of its good 
qualities, to deserve? It is because the nursery men, 
for their profit, prefer to cultivate mulberries of a 
rapid growth, that they may sell after two or three 
years from the grafting, while it requires two years 



20 

more for the rose-leafed variety before it has attained 
a size suitable to offer it for sale. In the second 
place, the greater part of proprietors mistake their true 
interest, not being willing to pay for this variety a 
higher price than for the others. 

The grosse-reine mulberry — m. alba macrophylla. 
This tree grows large, but does not rise higher 
than the Roman. Its shoots are large, and its buds 
more near together. No other variety exhibits so 
large leaves; they are a little more plaited, and their 
petiole is short, compared to their size. The berries 
are large and white, very sugary, but they have not 
the agreeable acidity of the berries of the black mul- 
berry, to which they are only comparable in size. 
They plant only about three or four of this variety to 
the hundred, and reserve its leaves to be employed 
toward the end of the feeding of the worms, and at 
the moment when they are on the point of moulting. 
This idea is drawn from the observation that has been 
made, that the worms void before being buried in their 
cocon: but this evacuation takes place also when the 
quality of the leaves given them at this epoch of their 
lives is not changed: since the worm must necessarily 
disencumber himself of all excremental matter before 
being transformed: thus it is very rare that we find 
fseces in the cocons, and we always find the skin of the 
worm, which is not injurious to the quality of the silk 
as would be the faeces diluted with warm -water at the 
moment of drawing it from the cocons. In conse- 
quence of an opinion that the leaf of the grosse-reine 
mulberry purges the silk worms, it has not commonly 
been given them in the first ages of their life; and 
this leaf is often refused by purchasers: many persons 



21 

only use it on failure of others. Is this opinion well 
founded, or is it an error? What is certain is, that in 
general the large leaves are more watery and contain 
less nutritive matter, and that from thence must result 
injury to the digestive faculties which must have an 
influence on the vigor of the worms. 

Langue de boeuf (ox-tongue) mulberry — m. alba 
oblongifolia. Its leaves are large, shining, not lobed, 
almost twice as long as broad. This variety is cul- 
tivated in the Cevennes; but is not much esteem- 
ed. They prefer that called colombassette, which 
seems to be a sub-variety of the rose-leafed mul- 
berry of Provence. 

The Dwarf mulberry — morus nana. This is a 
variety produced from seeds, and which reproduces 
itself sometimes in the same manner. The tree is a 
little larger than that known under the name of Con- 
stantinople mulberry. Its leaves are very like those 
of the grosse-reine, and its berries are white. The 
dwarf mulberry will be advantageously cultivated, be- 
cause its boughs are very near, and a tree of small 
size will furnish as many leaves as another mulberry 
three times as large: we can plant of them also a 
much greater quantity on the same extent of land. 

M. alba integrifolia — a mulberry with leaves always 
whole and shining. 

M. alba integrifolia obscura — leaves always whole, 
and not shining. 

M. alba semilobata et coriacea, with large 
leaves, tough as leather: commonly its leaves are di- 
vided into from two to five lobes. 

Lobe-leafed mulberry — m. alba lobata. Its leaves 
are divided as far as the centre into from three 



22 

to five lobes. This mulberry has three sub-varieties: 
in one the leaves are very large; in the second they 
are of middling size; and very small in the third. 

Morus laciniata. This variety has its leaves divi- 
ded into five deep lobes, of which the middle one, lar- 
ger than all the others, is itself divided into five or six 
alternate lobes. To these five last varieties, which 
are little known in the culture on a large scale, we 
must also add a mulberry cultivated now for some 
years past in the Jardin du Roi, and brought from the 
isle of Bourbon by Capt. Philibert. Its leaves are 
whole and scarcely marked, nearly dull on the upper 
surface, more decidedly pubescent on the lower than 
other white mulberries. Its parenchyme or pitch is 
rather small and dry. A young stem has already 
passed the winter unprotected in the ground without 
injury from the cold. It will be advantageous, to cul- 
tivate this variety, if its leaves do, as we are assured, 
supply to the worms of China the best quality of silk. 

Though we have all these varieties, the botanists 
add also the morus *tartarica, m. |Constantinopoli- 
tana, m. J rubra, m. (5 indica, m. |jlatifolia, m. IT aus- 
tralis, m. **mauretiana, m. tinctoria, m. jj papyrifera; 
indeed they enumerate as many as eighteen kinds of 
mulberry, all of foreign origin. They are considered 
as apetalous, and dicotyledonous plants, family of 
urtices, class monoecia, tetrandria L — . J — . Apeta- 
lous dicotyledon, species having male flowers collected 
in aments; stamens separate from the pistils. Order 
III. Urtices. Calyx four parted, divisions oval and 

*T;irtar. t Constantinople. £ Red. § Indian. || Broad 
leafed. IT Southern. ** Morettian. ft Japan paper, m. 



23 

concave; corolla none; stamens four, situated between 
the divisions of the calyx; filaments erect, subulate 
longer than the calyx, and supporting the anthers. 
Female flowers (growing sometimes on the same in- 
dividual, and sometimes on a separate plant) have a 
calyx with four leaves, rounded, obtuse, and persistent? 
the two opposite exterior ones approaching each other; 
corolla none; pistil naked; germ, heart shaped, sur- 
mounted with two oblong, subulate, rough, strong 
styles, terminated by simple stigmas; no pericarp; its 
place supplied by the calyx, which is converted into a 
fleshy succulent berry, containing one, sometimes two 
pointed oval seeds, of which one is usually abortive; 
perisperm whitish, fleshy, of the same form as the 
seeds, receiving the embryo reversed, bent into hooks. 
Cotyledons oblong foliacious, smooth, narrow, bent 
one over another. The upper radicle is cylindrical. 
Distinctive character, monoecial flowers. Calyx four 
parted, corolla none, stamens four, styles two; peri- 
carp none; calyx changed into a fleshy berry. The 
female flowers are numerous, collected rather loosely 
in a common receptacle. Each germ is changed into 
a succulent berry, the union of which forms the fruit 
we call mulberries — white, red or black. The trees 
are whitish, milky. They delight much in sheltered 
places, and warm grounds, and rise to a height more 
or less considerable. They extend their roots deep, 
large and branching. Their wood is of a yellow 
citron color, more or less deep; their bark rather hard, 
covered with greyish rough places; their leaves 
alternate, often lobed, accompanied with caducous 
stipules toward their base. They have a very con- 
siderable power of vegetation, and put forth rapidly. 



24 

When grafted, they die after twenty-five years, while 
the mulberries not grafted, the wild stock continue, 
even through the hardest winters, for one and some- 
times two centuries. We meet them even in the north- 
ern regions. Every where, where are silk worms, the 
mulberries are found; but it is only in a rather elevat- 
ed temperature that we can flatter ourselves to see 
them prosper. There the thorough maturity of its 
leaves, by means of the warmth, may promise all the 
qualities requisite to the nourishment of the worm. 
Finally, if he has need himself of a constant and 
equal heat, it is only in tropical climates that it will 
be possible to unite both, and the raising of the silk 
worm will deserve to be justly considered an impor- 
tant enterprize. 

Since some experiments made on the leaves of the 
grafted mulberry, it has been known that in a hundred 
ounces, thirty are evaporated by drying; that the 
same quantity of those whose leaves are deep green 
loses thirty-one, and the double leaves thirty-six. In- 
deed, when the leaf of the mulberry is young, new 
and tender, it contains a large part of watery matter; 
the more it grows mature the less it contains. The 
worms also in their first and second age let much 
moisture escape from them, and are constantly sur- 
rounded with vapor, which they exhale in proportion 
to their bulk. 

In the beginning of raising silk worms in Europe, 
they used only the leaf of the black mulberry. But 
when the white mulberry had been cultivated under 
the beautiful climate of Greece, it was not difficult to 
procure it from thence. It offered, among others, 
some advantages that made it altogether preferable. 



25 

In the first place, the putting forth of its leaves more 
early, allows of using it much sooner, and, by conse- 
quence, of obtaining the cocons some time before the 
greatest heat of the season. Secondly, the abundance 
of the leaves that may be taken from it in a shorter 
time; the disposition of them, thicker: in fine, they 
attribute also to this species the excellent quality of 
silk which comes from worms fed on its leaves, al- 
though the warmth contributes very much to it. 
However, the opinion seems yet to be in favor of the 
influence of the mulberry on the worm which feeds 
on it, and the silk that comes from him; for, in a leaf, 
we distinguish the parenchyme, the coloring matter, 
and the watery particles, all which can scarce serve 
for food, much less be considered nutritive. It is 
therefore only the saccharine matter that expands the 
insect, and makes him grow, and, developing the 
resinous matter which fills his two reservoirs, brings 
him at last to make his cocon. 

In general, the leaf of the black mulberry which 
will be hard and like leather, though given abundant- 
ly, cannot nourish the silk worm like that of the white, 
and will produce only a coarse and heavy silk, but 
abundant; while the other, planted in suitable land, 
furnishes a silk of excellent quality, as handsome as 
it is pure. It is all the other way if we put it in moist 
and fertile lands; the silk is not only less abundant, 
but also of a quality very inferior. So, the less good 
the leaves are, the more must the worm consume of 
them, and the greater attention ought to be given to 
watch that he does not become sick. The less of the 
resinous substance they contain, the smaller will be the 
cocon, though the worm comes to his greatest enlarge- 
3 



26 

ment. The best of all the leaves of the mulberry is 
that commonly called double leaf — small, of a deep, 
blackish, and shining green; it contains a less portion 
of water. It should be preferred to those which are 
large and heavy and produced by vigorous trees in 
their season of greatest strength; for it is well ascer- 
tained that in proportion as trees grow older do their 
leaves become tender and nutritious to the silk worm. 
And, comparing those which have been grafted, to the 
wild, it is the last kind which produces in its leaves 
the nutritious quality and has the elements of silk in 
greatest abundance; though the grafted, when old, 
yields a quantity of. white berries much more sugary 
and in greater numbers; and in places where they 
sell its leaves they take care not to separate the 
berries from them, though the worm does not eat them. 
Particular care must be given to separate all the 
leaves which have on them either any moisture occa- 
sioned by dew or rain, or the mucous-saccharine secre- 
tion that we sometimes find on them, and which is 
considered a sort of manna, — because that in either 
case they may be unwholesome and make the worm 
sick. Indeed the leaves of whatever sort, after they 
have been selected must be kept sheltered from 
moisture and light, in a place of a temperature con- 
stantly equal, to prevent them from acquiring, by being 
heaped together, any perceptible and rapid action of 
fermentation, which is always manifest when they 
have been gathered in warm weather and in panniers 
or bags, where they have already undergone the first 
degree of pressure. It is necessary therefore to 
take great care to have near the coconry, (atelier) 
a place where they may be watched during two or 



27 

three days, taking the precaution to remove them, if 
necessary, from time to time, to prevent any change in 
them. And even when they become mouldy before 
being gathered, we need not regret it, because the 
worm eats only what remains of it uninfected: it is 
enough to give them a greater abundance of it, in 
order that they may not be obliged to seek nourish- 
ment from them. 

In warm countries, in Italy especially, and in all 
those parts of France adjacent to it, in the southern 
departments, mulberries may thrive, and give nourish- 
ment to the silkworm in abundance; but care must 
be taken not to strip them but once a year, if we 
would preserve the trees a long time, and particularly 
before the second sap, so that the leaf may be renew- 
ed, and we may not risk the loss of it, by gradual 
decay or by a total drying up of the branches and 
trunk. M. Loiseleur Deslongchamps has pointed 
out still more varieties of the white mulberry, inter- 
esting in view of the qualities they possess for the 
nourishment of silk worms. As they are not much 
known we shall give an account of them. 

The first is la colombassette. This is the most 
ancient known variety; its leaf is small, slender, thin, 
very soft; the silk worms prefer it to other kinds. 
The berries at maturity are yellowish and very large. 
The trees are the largest of the species, and of the 
longest duration. — The second is the rose. Its leaf is 
a little larger, and of rather deeper green than the 
colombassette: it is as good for-the nourishment of the 
worms. Its berries are reddish, and of the same size 
as those of the preceding variety. — The third is la 
colombasse verte, exhibiting two sub-varieties, which 



28 

are designated by the names of the large and the small 
colom. verte. Its leaves are not so fine as the two 
first, but they are larger and more elongated. Its 
berries are blueish, and not so large as those of the 
colombassette and the rose. — The fourth, la rabalayre 
or traineuse, a variety much resembling the colom- 
basse verte, but which is essentially distinguished 
from it, in that its buds are farther apart, and of con- 
sequence the tree produces less leaves, and as it is 
less exhausted in producing foliage, it grows large 
and developes itself rapidly. The tree bears few 
berries, and they are of the same color as those of the 
colombasse verte. The fifth, la poumaou, or la pom- 
me; its leaf is large, rather fine, of a round form. 
The tree produces scarcely any berries, and although 
it does not throw out shoots as long as the other va- 
rieties, it furnishes a sufficiently large quantity of 
leaves, because its branches are leaved in their whole 
extent. The sixth, la meyne: this variety has the 
greatest resemblance to the preceding, both in quality 
and size. The form of the leaf is not so round. 
The seventh, Pamella, or l'amande. The leaf of this 
variety is oval, much thicker, and heavier than that 
of all the preceding varieties, and more difficult to 
gather. It suffers less than those from the cold, from 
winds and dew which produce mildew or mould, a 
disease of the leaf which causes much loss. The 
tree yields not scarcely any berries. The last is la 
fourcade, or la fourche, a variety whose leaf is nearly 
round, and very abundant, by reason of the nearness 
of its buds. The ninth is la dure: it bears this name 
because its leaves are really hard, not for the worms, 
but for detaching them from its branches. It requires 



29 

strong arms to gather them; and laborers for the most 
part, to make light work, adopt the mode of detaching 
them one by one. Its leaf is nearly round, rather 
fine, and is produced as abundantly as the fourcade. 
The tree does not produce scarcely any berries. It 
grows grubby, if its culture is in the slightest degree 
neglected. The tenth, finally, is l'admirable. This 
variety exceeds all the others in the size of its leaves; 
it also produces more of them, by reason of the near- 
ness of its buds. Its leaves are strong, and thick; 
they are not given to the worms, till after they have 
passed their fourth moulting, because they then have 
strength, and appetite, necessary to eat them without 
injury. When this tree is set deep, and well culti- 
vated, its leaves attain an extraordinary size. It is 
not rare to see them from ten to eleven inches long, 
and eight or nine broad. The tree produces few ber- 
ries, which are small, and of a grey color. 

Of these ten varieties the colombasse, and the 
colombassette, are those whose properties are most 
favorable to the health of the silk worm, and which 
cause them to produce, at the same time, the most 
silk, and of the best quality. However, in general 
the preference is given to the poumaou, the meyne, 
the fourcade, Tamella, and l'admirable, because these 
varieties produce more leaves. 



3* 



30 



CHAP. III. 



OF THE CULTIVATION OF THE MULBERRY 
TREE. 

We have already said, that for a long time the leaf 
of the black mulberry only was used for the feeding 
of silk worms; and also that the white mulberry was 
preferred to it, because its leaves being generally com- 
posed of a fibrous texture, of a coloring matter, of a 
saccharine matter, the only nutritive part, and of a 
quantity of resinous matter heavier than silk, but, at the 
same time, stripped of its animal part, of alike nature 
with it, it could not be doubted that the resinous part 
was the only one that went to form the silk, as the 
saccharine contributed to the animal fluids that were 
the life of the insect. It is easy to conceive that the 
kind of leaf which contains the most of these elements 
under the least volume of parenchyme, or indigestible 
fibres will be the best food that can be given to the 
silk worm. We shall speak then only of these two 
species, and, beginning with the black, shall dwell 
more particularly on that of the morus alba, or white 
mulberry. 

The black mulberry, morus nigra, m. fructu nigro, 
is a tree which, according to the climate where it is 



31 

planted, may grow to a height of 20, 30 and even 40 
feet, forming a head more or less rounded, divided 
into branches and crooked boughs, bearing on them 
short and thick shoots. Its leaves are petioled, heart- 
shaped, pointed, indented, without hair and rough to 
the touch on the upper surface, pubescent on the low- 
er, often entire, sometimes divided as far as the centre 
into three single lobes, which sometimes are sub-di- 
vided into many other small secondary lobes, as if cut. 
The flowers are male and female: the first are dioich- 
al, with oblong chatons, solitary, or sometimes collect- 
ed two or three together ; their axes and calices 
pubescent: the second disposed in oval chatons, with 
peduncles very short, to which succeeds oval berries, 
oblong, more or less thick, of a blackish purple color, 
of a pleasant flavor, acidulous and refreshing: the 
flowers appear in June, and the fruit from July to 
September. We are assured that it is native to Per- 
sia, but the time of its introduction into Europe, is en- 
tirely unknown: however, there is reason to think 
that it must be very ancient. 

However this may be, the berries have a taste 
slightly sugary, and acidulous, which makes them 
sought in their season. A little less agreeable than 
many other of the summer fruits, they must be taken 
at the moment of their perfect maturity, for if taken 
too soon they are sour, if too late they have suddenly 
an action of fermentation: it is only when they may 
be detached from the tree by giving it a slight shake 
that they are truly good to eat. Often in an excessive 
abundance on the same tree, they are not ripe till 
toward the middle of July, and are prolonged succes- 
sively till the end of September. Considered in rela- 



32 

tion to their use, the berries are assuaging and even 
laxative. They are not much used, except in medicine 
prepared in form of a syrup called by their name, and 
which is often employed as an efficacious remedy in 
many circumstances. The berries when pressed, if 
the sugar obtained from them is mixed with water, and 
subjected to the necessary fermentation, produces a 
vinous liquor, sufficiently alcoholic, and which passes 
very rapidly to an acid state. Dealers are accused of 
coloring wines with the sugar of the mulberries; but 
this coloring matter must form a deposit, disagreeable 
to meet with in drinking. The bark of the black mul- 
berry is of a bitter and acrid taste nearly insupporta- 
ble. The attempt has been made, and with success, 
to make paper from it. 

Its leaves nourish the silk worm as do those of the 
white mulberry: in many countries they do not even 
cultivate any others for this object. Its wood may be 
used in joiners' work: it is easily turned. In the en- 
virons of Paris it grows scarcely beyond 25 or 30 feet 
high: it is rarely met with larger. For the most part 
they give nearly in every two years a crop of fruit 
much more abundant than in the ordinary year. In 
the first case the female chatons are very numerous, 
the male rather rare; it is quite the contrary in the 
second case, but the leaves are much more nour- 
ishing. Produced from the seed it is much more 
strong and vigorous; but it is usually only propagated 
by layers and slips, which is done commonly at the 
close of winter, and toward the commencement of 
spring. It is most frequently planted in orchards, 
gardens, sheltered places near houses, and in yards, 
because fowls are extremely greedy of the berries 



33 

when they fall. In hedge-rows under walls they do 
not require either space or cultivation, as in the open 
ground. 

The white mulberry, inorus alba, cultivated all over 
Europe, though indigenous in China, is a tree which 
grows to a height more or less considerable: its roots 
are close, compact and ligneous, extending themselves 
rather deep in the ground, whose inner sap is of a 
deep lemon color, and is deepest towards the centre. 
Unequal, rather deep crevices are furrowed through 
the whole extent of the bark, to its branches, rarely 
straight, unequally scattered, the direction of which 
toward the top spreads to take the rounded form. The 
small boughs that spread from it carry with them a 
greater or less quantity of leaves narrowed in the form 
of a heart, and indented quite to their points; often 
single, and rough to the touch. They are in one or 
more lobes. The flowers they produce are monoecial 
and in chatons, which bring forth a small sugary fruit in 
form of a whitish or slightly purpled berry: they appear 
in April, and even at the end of March in the southern 
countries. In cold countries they do not appear till 
May. 

The first plantations of white mulberry in France 
were limited to the banks of the Rhone; but after trials 
had been made of it in Dauphiny, in Languedoc, and 
Provence, the mulberry succeeded perfectly in every 
region where it was planted. Indeed, although accord- 
ing to the manner of planting, grafting or cultivating it 
by different processes, it may perhaps be altered or mo- 
dified to something not resembling its original, it is so 
divided that it would be very difficult to define its divi- 
sions according to the characters which it exhibits; 



34 

nevertheless among the grafted mulberries and those 
not grafted there are found four varieties, which it is 
important to point out and make known. 

Thus, among grafted mulberries we distinguish first 
the kind designated under the name of feuille reine 
luisante (shining queen,) much larger than all others 
and especially than the wild mulberry. Its fruit is 
of a grey and a blue color, more or less deep, ap- 
proaching to the slate. 2d. that called feuille grosse 
reine, (fat queen,) of a very deep blackish green: its 
fruit is of a handsome black. 3d. that which is called 
feuille de Espagne (Spanish leaf,) thick, large and 
broad, with a white fruit more or less elongated. 4th. 
finally, that known by the name of floes, (woolly) 
which produces a considerable quantity of berries 
which scarcely ever or very rarely ripen. (See pre- 
ceding chap.) 

Among the ungrafted, very improperly called wild 
mulberries, (for it is proved that it cannot produce it- 
self, since a seed taken from the tree, and placed 
in a condition necessary to produce a tree, will only 
come to an abortion,) there are also four distinct 
species; 1st. that with a rose-shaped leaf, slender, 
indented and rounded into a form somewhat larger 
than the leaf of common rose bushes, with a very 
small white fruit. 2d. the gold-leafed, with leaves 
shining, and elongated toward the middle, the fruit of 
which becomes rather black than reddish or purple. 
3d. that called la reine batarde, (the bastard queen,) 
with large unequally indented leaves, and the fruit of 
which is extremely black. 4th. finally, la femelle, 
(the female,) the fruit of which appears before the 
leaf, and in which the whole surface of the tree is 
covered with thorns, (see preceding chap.) 



35 

To cultivate mulberry trees, and to sow them with 
all the conditions essential, in order to see them in- 
crease with a fair yield, and to have them strong and 
developed in such a manner as safely to count on 
their products, one of them should be chosen in its 
full maturity and entire. By shaking it a (exv minutes, 
we gather all the finest of the berries, among those 
which have fallen, to put them to dry in the shade, 
and in a place free from all moisture; then they are 
put into bags of thick brown paper, or in a bottle, to 
preserve them from insects. At the sowing time they 
are to be soaked in water, the pulp broken between 
the two hands, and washed several times. When this 
is done in autumn or toward the end of winter, it will 
be perfectly the same thing, provided that we choose 
for it a ground improved by many former cultivations, 
and which is not too much subject to nmisture. After 
having prepared beds, greater in length than in 
breadth, laying them out by a line, intersected by fur- 
rows two inches deep, crossed by others in parallel 
lines who^e points of contact meet at a foot distance 
one from another, in which the grain is sowed rather 
thick; the rake is to be passed over to cover them, 
some horse-manure spread over the whole; from time 
to time, they must be weeded during the heat; and 
dry weather, they must be watered, and the surface 
must be from time to time renewed carefully. The 
plants will soon show themselves, when they must be 
thinned, if growing too thick, putting them, as near 
as possible, two or three inches apart. After having 
let them come to the size of a goose quill it will be 
necessary for at least three years, counting that in 
which they are sown, to tend them during the whole 



36 

time in the following manner: At their first appear- 
ance they must be thinned: the second year they must 
be pruned of all the small branches up to a foot from 
the ground: from time to time they must be watered; 
they must be weeded with a weeding-hook, have fre- 
quent tillage, must be retrenched of all the super- 
fluous branches, and all that are unthrifty, poor, or 
grubby must be entirely cut off. The best are to be 
grafted after having transplanted them to another 
place, dug about and tilled anew, and set at a distance 
of at least three feet from one another. Some put 
them only at two feet; but particular attention must 
be given to preserve all the small branches of the 
roots from contact as much as possible; then fur- 
rows are to be made, or trenches deep enough to 
place them in a suitable position. For grafting, those 
must be chosen which have been sowed six months 
beforehand. If we wish to make a graft by budding, 
it is to be taken of six lines * in diameter for the size, 
and at six or eight inches above the ground, for it is 
only the old that can be grafted en flute. 

But it is an important question whether they should 
or should not be grafted. Observation proves that 
the mulberry trees not grafted, last for ages, compara- 
tively with the others, though they do not yield leaves 
so handsome. The length of time during which they 
produce them may certainly compensate for the ad- 
vantages of the grafted tree, which, after twenty or 
twenty-five years in which it has produced, ends by 
decay, which obliges us, so to speak, to grub them up 
in order to replace them with others. Thus the advan- 

* A line is one twelfth of an inch. 



;>>7 

vantages which we derive from the grafted trees are not 
so great, as we should wish to say they were; for though 
the grafted trees come on much sooner, than those 
that are not grafted, they arrive much sooner also, to 
their termination: and all who have been occupied 
extensively in the culture of the silk worm have al- 
ways preferred the leaf of the ungrafted or wild mul- 
berry, to that of the grafted, although handsomer in 
appearance; and the product of the crops yielded by 
the first, differ much in their quality from all tfa 
produced by the use of the second. " Beside the 
superiority belonging to the wild, in the quality of its 
leaf, and its suitableness to produce a finer, and more 
brilliant silk, it has also over the grafted the advan- 
tage of an earlier development of its buds, and of 
being perfectly wholesome to the worms in their first 
age. As, however, the trees of this kind have not 
been generally much multiplied, perhaps it will be 
most advantageous to cultivators having but a small 
number, to i its loaves for the worms in the 

fourth age. It is at the time when they reach this 
age, that ordinarily comes on the season of suffocating 
heat, which, relaxing the organs of the worms, renders 
very difficult the digestion of food such as is obtain- 
ed from the leaf of the grafted mulberry, too abundant 
in fibres, liable to a dangerous fermentation in their 
vessels, and too destitute of silky matter. 

" A blind cupidity has however caused the adop- 
tion almost universally of the custom, introduced 
about 1720, by the inhabitants of Alais, to cultivate 
only grafted mulbenies. They are sooner in full 
bearing than the wild: they produce leaves larger^ 
thicker, and consequently heavier: their boughs are 



38 

more loaded with berries, which adds also to their 
weight. Here are the reasons of a preference, which 
by compromitting the long succession of crops, and 
deteriorating the quality of the silk, has dearly bought 
the advantages which it brings to those who sell the 
leaves. Though the disadvantages may be less in 
the meagre lands of hills, than in moist and fertile 
plains, where the leaf acquires a quality little resi- 
nous, but very watery and sugary; yet the advice to 
return to the use of the wild, ought not to be more 
disregarded by the high countries than by the low 
lands. 

" Likewise, the best quality of leaf is that from trees 
brought to maturity in a soil loose, light, and sandy, 
but not too dry, and rather dry and poor, than moist 
and strong. Every one can, on these data, measure 
the degree of goodness of his leaf, and understand be- 
forehand the influence it will have on the success of 
his worms." (Dictionnaire d'Agriculture.) 

Finally, of grafted and not grafted, the mulberries 
cannot, in the first case, be transplanted to the place 
they are to occupy, till after their third year, the 
others at about five or six years. For this there 
should be made during summer, trenches, two and a 
half feet deep, six feet full in breadth, which should 
be left open till February or March: then the tree is 
placed therein with all the care and caution we have 
already recommended above in speaking of the nurse- 
ry; the earth about its stem should be watered, and 
be often turned up afresh, and no other plant suffered 
to spring up in it. Generally, we should transplant 
only handsome, well-selected subjects, and which es- 
pecially are not old in the nursery, crooked, knotty. 



39 

or mean looking. They should be transplanted as 
soon as possible after being removed from the ground, 
without cutting off any thing, and without even re" 
moving the earth which may remain on their surface. 
In case the planting be not effected soon enough, the 
roots may be surrounded with straw wrapped around 
them. It is on the good treatment of the tree, after 
it has been transplanted, that depends the time when 
it may be stripped for the feeding of the worms. It is 
advisable not to be in haste to do it, and to wait till at 
least the fifth year from its planting. By attempting 
to enjoy its product too soon, we check its growth, 
and risk the loss of it. Those indeed who wish to 
have its utmost vigor, strip it only once in two years. 
Moist or marshy lands should be avoided. It is im- 
portant to choose, on the contrary, those which are 
light, not too moist nor too dry, and, if possible, 
gravelly, like those we meet with in Provence, and 
Languedoc. The spaces ought to be from five to six 
feet between each tree and the path or border of the 
field. The hatchet or pruning knife, should not be 
used but to give the tree a suitable form and to prune 
off all the useless branches. Well directed and taken 
care of, they become magnificent, especially if they 
are carefully handled in gathering the leaves. It is 
recommended even to separate the leaves with shears, 
in order to avoid lacerating them. Though with an 
edged instrument it may require more time, and it 
may be necessary to let them fall on the cloths to be 
heaped up afterwards, it is nevertheless true that this 
method has some real advantages, in that the tree 
suffers less, and that the leaves in gathering are no* 



40 

liable to be damaged in any manner, as happens al- 
ways in enclosing ihem in baskets or bags. 

For more ample details on the cultivation of the 
mulberry, the works of Bonnafous, Duhamel, Loise- 
leur Deslongchamps, Rozier, and Sauvages, who 
have written particular treatises, may be consulted. 
We shall in them find confirmed, 

1st. That it is of the first necessity, to cultivate 
those mulberries only that produce good leaves, and 
that it is on them, chiefly, that the quality of the silk 
depends. 

2d. That with a quantity of leaves of ungrafted 
mulberries compared with those of others, the advan- 
tage is found in the cocons produced from the first. 
3d. That the hatching of the eggs must take place 
at the time of the appearance of the leaves, by pre- 
paring them by means of a stove. 

4th. That, especially in the first age, the leaves 
must not be given to them, unless gathered some 
hours after sunrise, to avoid the moisture of the dew. 
5th. All leaves mildewed, rusty, mouldy by the 
rain, by fogs, must be rejected. Only the fresh, 
good and dry, must be given to the worms. 

6th. That the strongest must be reserved for the 
latter time of the feeding of the worm: because then 
he has acquired strength to digest them. 

*7th. That it is necessary to procure as often as 
possible a sufficient supply of provision, either pur- 
chasing it by the weight or judging by estimation from 
trees of known quantity. 

8th. To avoid the odor exhaled by the leaves, 
they should not be placed near the frames, because 
the odor of the worm is already sufficiently strong. 



41 

9th. Finally, all leaves gathered from sound, vigor- 
ous trees, which have not been exposed to humidity 
or to the heat of the sun, given to the worms when in 
all their freshness, are those which prove best, to 
make them succeed. 



CHAP. IV. 



OF THE HATCHING OF SILK WORMS. 

Among the first things to be observed in hatching 
the eggs, after having separated them from the cloth 
or paper on which they have been kept since they 
were laid, the most important is to submit them to a 
temperature a little raised, as much to produce vigor- 
ous worms, and to preserve them susceptible of ful- 
filling the end designed for them, as to bring them 
forth all at once. For a long time past recourse has 
not been had to the heat of dung-heaps, of beds, of 
kitchens, or other places: now stoves or hot-houses 
are made like those used by gardeners to obtain flow- 
ers in winter: from the moment that the eggs are ex- 
posed to heat, they undergo all together the same 
change of condition; and whatever the number may 
be, they come forth nearly all at the same time. It is 
4 # 



42 

necessary during the time to give them continued at- 
tention and great care, for without it the whole brood 
may be lost or suffer injury. Thus, after being provi- 
ded with thermometric apparatus, and having described 
the stove for hatching them, we will explain the man- 
ner of their coming out. 

1st. To prepare eggs for hatching, it is absolutely 
necessary that they should be well impregnated, and 
particularly, well preserved till the end of April or 
first of May. For our climate, linen cloths are used, 
which are immersed for six minutes in water, to dis- 
solve the mucilaginous matter that they retain on 
their surface: they are left to dry for ten minutes on a 
table and all the eggs, are. to be scraped off with an 
instrument rounded and cut as described, (see fig. 3.) 
which are thus detached with much ease: they are 
heaped up in order to be poured together, till none 
remain on the linen. It may be done in any vessel in 
half an hour. A small quantity of water is poured 
over the eggs before separating them, which serves to 
wash them. We take off all that rises in this opera- 
tion. Five minutes are sufficient for it. It has 
been observed that the eggs collected in a cold and 
moist temperature turn yellow, and sink to the bottom 
of the vessel. The whole are poured on a sieve or 
piece of clean linen, to separate the water from them 
and keep the eggs apart. After having collected as 
many as are thought necessary, they are to be sprink- 
led with weak wine, — red or white. Some do this 
again with a new water, and this makes no percepti- 
ble difference; but it is not well to leave them too 
long in the wine, because it hardens them much, and 
retards their birth. They must be taken out in ten 



43 

minutes. The love of gain only has led those who 
trade in them to immerse them in very dark colored 
wine. Thus they color them like eggs well impregna- 
nated, though nothing can he obtained from them; a 
fraud against which the purchaser must be on his 
guard. Thus, after having well separated them by a 
gentle friction, they must be stirred up, shaken, pour- 
ed offquickly, and we easily collect the heaviest, which 
are all good. They are then to be taken out of the 
wine and spread again on new dry linens till they be- 
come completely dry, — which will take about 48 hours. 
They are to be kept spread out in beds of six or eight 
lines thick, in earthen or porcelain plates, till we wish 
to hatch them. They must be kept sheltered from 
light and, moisture, and provided the temperature be 
from six to twelve degrees of Reaumur, this will be 
sufficient. All these attentions will only require an 
hour and a half. 

2d. In order to be able to establish the degree of 
temperature suitable to hatch the silk worm and to 
regulate it by keeping it constantly equal, it is neces- 
sary to have at disposal and in sight a thermometer 
well graduated and well made. For this, one of mer- 
cury should be selected; however, as they are very 
dear, if it is desirable to have a large one, M. 
Lagarde, optician, at Paris, quai de Gevres, n. 10, 
au troisieme, makes them of spirits of wine with which 
it is impossible to commit errors. He has constructed 
them according to directions given him by Mr. Dandolo 
himself, from a physician at Milan; for "the distance 
marked for the state of the glass at boiling w T ater on 
the common thermometers is too small; the degrees on 
them are too near, which sometimes causes errors. 



44 

To avoid this inconvenience, I have caused to be con- 
structed for the stove a thermometer with along scale, 
the distance from one degree to another being equiva- 
lent to that of ten degrees in the common thermome- 
ters: by this means I have had each degree divided 
into five fractions, which are easily distinguishable 
even at considerable distance. We can thus perceive 
the least alterations in the heat of the stove. These 
thermometers have a mark, indicating where the spirits 
of wine ought to stop, which should be colored red 
I observe that if I have had them made of spirits of 
wine, it is because those of mercury were too costly. 
Otherwise, when they are made by a skilful workman 
they are sufficiently exact." In order therefore to 
operate in a manner as certain as it is possible to do 
the only thing is to procure thermometers like those 
of which mention has been made in this article. 

3d. As to the arrangement of the hot-house let a 
small room, of twelve feet on every side be used, the 
walls of which are very dry, with a stove on one of 
the sides or in the middle, made of baked clay or of 
bricks very small, and which may be heated with little 
fuel and gradually, so that it may retain its heat in a 
manner to prolong it as much as possible, or may be 
increased or diminished as may be required, without 
causing smoke in the interior (fig. 5.): let several 
thermometers be placed there in different parts, to see 
jf they agree, and if the heat is every where the same. 
For, if it is constantly the case that the eggs of cater- 
pillars only become hatched because they are placed 
n an atmosphere warm enough to open the seed, the 
silk worms cannot certainly get in our climate the 
degree of heat which they have in that whence they 



45 

originate; it is then of absolute necessity to supply it 
to them, in order to make them all hatch at the same 
time, and that they may be developed in the same 
manner. Hurdles of ozier should be arranged there 
beforehand, or boards placed near the wall by means 
of cross-pieces fixed in it, so as not to leave more 
than twenty-two inches between each, in order to 
place thereon the necessary number of boxes made of 
pasteboard sufficiently thick or of white wood very 
thin. Those of pasteboard ought to be eight inches 
square, with borders of half an inch for one ounce of 
eggs ; and when a larger number of eggs is to be hatch- 
ed, it may be done on thin wood, more or less long and 
broad, with borders more or less elevated, according as 
desired, on which the numbers may be inscribed. They 
are placed then near each other leaving a space of two 
inches between each, and always at a height convenient 
to examine them easily, and so as to be able to remove 
them with a wooden spatule or shovel (fig. 8.): which 
allows opportunity to stir them without crushing them. 
By means of very sensible thermometers we may 
easily perceive what places there may be in the hot- 
house where the heat is less, in order so to place the 
eggs as to advance or retard them as may be desired, 
according to the good or bad season, which may delay 
or not the sprouting of the leaves; placing there also 
some light tables on which may be deposited the 
boxes in which the worms are hatched. It will be 
very easy to place them on the tables in such manner 
that they may be changed from place to place at will, 
and according to need. 

One window in large panes will give light enough, 
and not by excess of light produce any damage to the 



46 

worms in their first age; and if necessary to moderate 
the heat, a moveable board may be fixed to the 
window, which shall open and shut according to the 
degree of temperature which it is wished to have. 
Some have used an opening at the door, or, better still, 
a ventilation in the middle of the ceiling, by means of 
a trap, which may be arranged so as to open by rais- 
ing, and close by letting it down. The hatching of 
the worms once completed, the hot-house may come 
into use for a frame house, and the worms be there 
disposed for feeding up to their last period, especially 
if it will not be again wanted to hatch others. 

4th. To arrange for the hatching of the worms, it 
will be necessary to observe the progress of the at- 
mospheric temperature, in reference to the sprouting 
of the leaves by course of vegetation; and ten days 
before having them out of the egg, they must be put 
into boxes of suitable size. After having noted it 
in a register fixed for this purpose, the date of their 
entry into the hot-house is marked, with the number of 
the boxes which contain them. By placing them at. 
distances, it will be impossible for them to get mixed 
by crossing from one to the other. The hurdles will 
be covered with paper in the hot-house, which is 
warmed at first to 14°, and care is to be taken to keep 
it at that degree of heat for two successive days: the 
third day it may be carried up to 15°; the fourth to 
16; the fifth to 17; the sixth to 18; the seventh to 
19; the eighth to 20; the ninth to 21; the tenth, 
eleventh and twelfth to 22. 

It will be easy to know by the following signs when 
the worms are about to be hatched. The eggs which 
were of an ash-grey, become more or less blue, they 



47 

then pass to violet, afterward to a yellowish grey, and 
finally to a dull white, though those which have been 
washed in a very dark-colored red wine, continue to 
have a reddish tint up to the moment when the worm 
comes forth. 

Often, before putting them in the hot-house to hatch, 
the eggs are made to undergo the process called 
steeping, by enclosing them in small bags, and placing 
them then under pillows between mattresses, in 
midst of coverings of wool. From time to time they 
are removed and stirred, — which operation is in order 
to hasten the hatching of the worms. This method is 
rather uncertain, because it is impossible to know ex- 
actly what degree of heat the eggs may have experi- 
enced in advance, and so, to know what will be 
suitable to them in order to bring them out well. This 
should never be determined by the feeling, though it 
be possible so to arrive at it with certainty and con- 
fidence. 

In all eggs submitted to long continued heat, the em- 
bryo that they contain acquires its degree of perfection, 
and the worms come to be hatched. Indeed, when, 
during the time between one season and the following, 
they have been kept in a mild temperature, there is no 
need of so great heat in the hot-house: they may even 
be hatched suddenly and spontaneously, at the time 
when the vegetation of the mulberry yet remains in 
entire repose, after being a short time in an atmos- 
phere of 10 or 12 degrees. It is then important and 
essential to give them great attention; for it will be a 
serious loss to be obliged to let them perish for want 
of nourishment; and if to make them hatch a little too 
soon occasions great loss in the feeding of the worm, 



48 

to obtain them some days later is not so. But when 
once begun it will be injurious to retard the hatching, 
and their growth will suffer much by it. 

It is not till the moment when the egg acquires a 
dull white color that the worm is entirely formed and 
ready to hatch. He will be easily discerned with a 
magnifying glass. Over the eggs are then placed 
white papers of different sizes, pierced with a multitude 
of holes, made before hand with an instrument. Pieces 
of very thin canvass may also be used; and in order 
to collect the worms together, they are covered with 
small branches of mulberry, at the end of which some 
young leaves are left. They are placed there, in 
order that the worms as they come out of the egg may 
climb on to the paper or canvass through the holes 
made in them. The branches of the mulberry serve 
to retain them and to prevent them from leaving the 
boxes in which they are hatched. The number of 
worms that mount on the papers is often very small on 
the first day. It will be best to disengage them 
thence, in order to attend to the great number that 
will come forth two days after; because the first, 
always more advanced by reason of their precocious 
birth, will disturb the order to be established in the 
development and care of the others. The small 
branches with isolated leaves should be preferred, 
because they hold back the small worm by their 
thickness, and it will be impossible for him to climb 
over them. They will die, for the most part, for want 
of ability to surmount this obstacle. 

All those hatched in the manner above mentioned 
and by means of the hot-house, enjoy a strength and 
vigor which is characterized by their deep chesnut 



49 

color. They are never red, much less black. It ap- 
pears to us, in viewing them placed on the sheet of 
perforated paper, like a woolly bed spread over their 
whole surface, on which are easily distinguished an in- 
finite number of animalcules, having a high head ter- 
minated with a black shining nose. The whole 
length of their body is bristled with scattered hairs 
in parallel lines, with some larger hairs. Their skin 
now white is expanded as they advance in age, and 
the hairs are effaced and disappear by degrees. 
Looking at them with a magnifying-glass their white 
skin is seen very large at the insertion of the head. 
Their tail also is seen to be scattered with a great 
number of hairs, remarkable for their length. 

At the same moment that we are occupied in hatch- 
ing the worms, we must also give attention to have 
some vessels of water placed at convenient distances, 
to moisten the air about them a little; for too great 
dryness may injure their development, which is fa- 
vored also by stirring them from time to time with the 
spatula. And the motion that is given them by this 
operation becomes more useful and even necessary as 
the moment approaches when they are about to be 
hatched. There is no loss in this preparatory attention ; 
for when it is omitted, the inconveniences of it greatly 
affect the worms, during all the rest of their short ex- 
istence. It will be even desirable that in those de- 
partments where persons are occupied extensively in 
the care of silk worms, generous councils will prevail 
in their assemblies to propose to government, as a 
means of promoting industry, to establish in each com- 
mune a local authority, expressly to have the worms 

hatched in common. There is no doubt that in charg- 
5 



50 

ing an intelligent man with this duty, who is acquainted 
with the art of hatching the eggs, it would contribute 
very much to diminish the losses of whole harvests of 
cocons, which often occur by want of this means, or 
by the blind course kept up and continually adopted. 



CHAP. V, 



OF THE ATELIER, OR COCONERY. 

1st. As too much heat accompanied with dryness 
in the surrounding atmosphere is hurtful to the silk- 
worms when they are first hatched, it is also necessary 
to give great attention that they be not exposed to 
the least cold, during 48 hours. The place where 
they are to live must be proportioned to the numbers 
which it is desired to place upon it till they shall come 
to the third moulting; calculating* always beforehand 
that they will occupy a space proportioned to their 
growth, and how much they will require to serve them 
in this interior circulation without being crowded. It 
is known by experience that the worms newly hatched 
from a brood of eggs weighing an ounce will occupy a 
space from seven to eight feet square till the first 
moulting; that it must then be extended from fifteen 
to sixteen feet till the second, ^id to thirty-five till the 



51 

third. The number of boards or hurdles must be in 
accordance with these required measures, in order 
that the worms may not be crowded or heaped to- 
gether. They must be placed at a distance of twen- 
ty-two inches, furnished with papers extending beyond 
their edges, to prevent the fall of the worms. We 
number the leaves of paper as well as the boxes, that 
no mistake may be committed by displacing them, and 
in order to be able to follow them to the end of their 
complete expansion. Two thermometers must be 
placed on this first frame. It is to be fixed in such 
way as to be able to heat it, either with a stove or 
with two small chimnies at the corners. The win- 
dows and doors are to be placed so as to light it suffi- 
ciently and to change the air. Its temperature must 
be steadily maintained at 19 degrees; always two or 
three less than in the hot-house, and progressively as 
the worm advances in age and strength. Also, when the 
season is bad, and when the leaves are late, the heat 
should be lessened: it may be brought down to 17 and 
even to 16 degrees, and never below. # 

Mons. D'Arcet has lately made trial in France of a new mode of 
purifying the habitations. In his system the worms are placed in an 
apartment in the first story: the fire-place or calorifere is on the lower 
floor beneath the coconery, in a tight room, or air chamber. The air 
passing out of this room is conducted, by tubes placed the whole length 
of the floor of the habitation, and is let into it by means of circular 
openings, of various sizes. In the ceiling is arranged a system of 
tubes and of openings, corresponding exactly with the one below. 
Through these upper openings the air powerfully attracted by a venti- 
lator and by a draft stove fixed in the chimney itself which receives 
the funnel of the calorifere, passes out, after having been introduced 
into the habitation, and this draft produces another in the air of the 
] ower room, so that it establishes a continual current. 



52 

The prudent overseer, adds M. Dandolo, has done 
all that depends on him by putting the eggs into the 
hot-house when he sees the season to be favorable, 
and that the buds of the mulberry trees are well devel- 
oped. If the season suddenly changes, as it did in 
1814, it becomes then of much importance to be able, 
without danger, to retard the birth of the worms, and 
prolong for some days the two first ages. To obtain 
this advantage, nothing is to be done, if it is the first 
day that the worms have been put on the small atelier, 
but to lower, after 4 or 5 hours the temperature from 
19 to 18, and 4 or 5 hours after to 17 ; and the next day 
to 16, if necessary. This cooling'of the air diminishes 
the appetite of the worms gradually without danger, 
and by this means we delay the changes which at 19 
degrees would bring them to their moulting. 

The first moulting is accomplished in 5 days, at 19 
degrees: it will require 6 or 7 at 16 or 17 degrees. 
The second moulting is accomplished in four days at 
19 degrees, and it must take more than six, if the 
temperature is from 16 to 17 degrees. You see then 
how the overseer, who shall conduct with prudence in 
prolonging the birth of his worms and the two first 
moultings, will be able to gain 7 or 8 days time to 
guard against the intemperatures of the season. He 
may gain also some days in the course of other moult- 
ings, as we shall see presently. This gain of time 
may be, as will be seen, of very great advantage. 

This plan has only once been tried, so far as known to us, and 
farther experiments must show its usefulness. It will, however, pro- 
bably be too expensive for general adoption in this country. [Trans.] 



53 

The tables annexed to the end of his work show 
that in 1813 the silk worms moulted in thirty-one days; 
and that he made it thirty-eight in 1814, for the time 
necessary to ripen the leaf. I do not include in these 
7 days of gain, the three days that he had caused the 
hatching to be delayed, perceiving that the season was 
very bad this last year. 

Those who will not take this care, and who do not 
employ the means which are pointed out to prevent the 
contrarieties of the seasons, will be obliged to throw 
away their worms born too soon, «or to strip too early 
the mulberry trees, which will in that case only afford 
leaves of a poor quality for the adult age. 

These considerations ought to make the necessity 
of delaying them for some days, generally perceived, 
rather than to be in haste in hatching them, especially 
knowing that with a good method in taking care of the 
worms, there will be no fear of some days of warm 
weather, which will have no other effect but to accom- 
plish the last moultings some days sooner. It is besides 
certain that the silk worms which are kept back will 
choose leaves suitable to their age, and particularly 
those that are well ripened when they are in their last 
age, a period decisive of the interests of the proprietor, 
because of the consummation of the worm's labors. 

2d. Once hatched, if it is designed to raise the 
worms in the same place, the small branches of the 
mulberry spread over the whole extent of perforated 
paper are filled with worms in the interior of small 
boxes placed on the table, which may serve to trans* 
port them to the small atelier: there on other sheets 
of paper a little thicker those are taken bearing the 

number of the box, and the table placed on the edges of 

5* 



54 

the hurdles, it will be easy to take the perforated pa- 
pers on which the worms are laid so as to slip them, 
by means of the small branches which support them, 
on to the paper in the hurdle. To do this more safe- 
ly than with the fingers, which always injure the 
worms, we should be supplied with a small hook, (fig. 
12,) bent, observing to place all the small branches 
at a suitable distance so that we may be able to cover 
them with leaves, as well as the spaces between them, 
and that the worms may be equally distributed over 
the whole. The space that they may thus occupy is 
about 20 inches square. 

Pieces of thick paper must be provided, 23 inches 

long by 21 inches broad. Occupying them in squares 

often inches, the worms hatched from an ounce of 

eggs will fill four of them. This suffices till the first 

moulting; for their space being four times that of 

the small box, there will be no need to remove them at 

all. It is unnecessary to say that the sheets of paper 

must bear the number of the box that is used to cover 

them. We then give them a few new very tender 

leaves, and cut equally small, spread all about, even 

among the branches, in order that the worms may 

cover them equally; and if by chance they get heaped 

up in some places more than others, some whole 

leaves may be thrown there, which we shall take care 

shall cover every where where they are wanting. It 

is necessary to give them food, as to the first; but we 

ought not to give any thing to these before the leaves 

of paper are entirely filled, so that they may all at 

once receive their second meal. 

As the whole mass of worms that we shall wish to 
have, can scarcely be brought forth in less time than 



55 

48 hours, all those that are hatched first will have 
some degree of growth larger than the second and 
third, which would seem to depend on those parts of 
the hot-house, where the temperature is a little differ- 
ent. But this difference disappears soon, on giving 
the mulberry leaves in greater abundance to those 
that are behind. They vary but little in all coming to 
the same size. 

After what has been said, it will be readily conceived 
that it often requires more than three days to obtain 
the entire hatching of all the silk worms that we wish 
to get from a given quantity of eggs. Though if the 
moths after the temperature in which they are kept 
require ten or fifteen days to appear and escape from 
a given quantity of cocons, it is clear that the eggs 
cannot also be laid till the same space often or fifteen 
days; but if it is desired to give an explanation of the 
cause for which the eggs, put to hatch the same day, 
all exposed to the same degree of heat, do not give 
their embryo to the light all at the same time, it will 
be very difficult. We can ascribe it only to the par- 
ticular constitution of each egg, and to the care that 
has been given to surround them with the proper de- 
gree of heat. 

It is nevertheless true, that a raiser who has only a 
single small box of eggs, and whose worms may be all 
hatched and raised in a single chamber, need not ever 
to count on the first, and much less on the last births — 
not that they may not be as good, but to avoid their 
difference of age. Finally, all those who choose to 
trust them to strangers, and those who hatch many 3 
should collect all those that appear in a given time; 
and by this means the first will not be mixed with the 



56 

last. And it will be better to lose some worms born 
the first day, and all the eggs not hatched on the third, 
rather than to be embarrassed with them during the 
whole progress of our cares. 

As to those that must be carried far from the hot- 
house, a whole ounce must be placed on a single 
piece of paper. In a single square of 18 inches divi- 
ded into four, passing the hand under the bed to 
which the worms are attached, and thrusting the 
fingers into the middle, the whole is easily separated, 
observing to divide them as equally as possible. For 
every trifling variation from all these early cares a 
great part of the worms will be lost, by coming out 
unequally and by contracting disorders of which we 
shall speak presently. 

For the greater facility in removing to a distance 
all the worms hatched in the hot-house, we should be 
furnished with a box, (fig. 13,) in the inside of which 
are placed, at 2 inches distance from one another, 
moveable boards which may be slid on parallel grooves, 
and on which are placed the pieces of paper filled 
with worms with two handles attached on the back 
side. Some crotchets are fixed in a manner on the 
sides and back. In case these cannot be procured, a 
common tray may serve, but with attention not to ex- 
pose them to cold: For this purpose they are covered 
with paper pasted thick: and the boxes containing the 
worms are divided by moveable boards, of 18 lines 
or 2 inches in thickness over the worms. We scatter 
over them some mulberry leaves, cut small and tender, 
if the removal is to be far. It must only be done, in 
all cases, at the pleasantest part of the day — from 
eleven o'clock to two or three, at latest. In the 



57 

morning, and more still in the evening, the atmospheric 
changes may have a very great effect on them. 

As the pieces of perforated paper with which we 
are supplied for the worms to rise upon are of sufficient 
size, so that we may spread over them a large quantity 
of small branches of mulberry, and consequently have 
a larger number of worms rise at once, we may place 
them horizontally, and in removing them to change 
their place, slightly shake them. If any of the holes 
by this means becomes filled with the egg-shells it will 
do no harm, and the worm will rise through, notwith- 
standing. Some, to come at greater precision, note 
with a pencil, which is always at hand, the hour at 
which the worms rise all together, and when there is 
a considerable number, and it is desired to preserve 
them till the second and third day, till which it is ne- 
cessary to wait for the whole to come out, they place 
the first in the corner of the box, and give only half 
the necessary quantity of food to eat. 

If the embryos suffer damage by the change of 
heat and 'cold, it will be much less when the tempera- 
ture is lessened two degrees than when it is increased 
at the same rate. As to the light, it influences them 
in a manner so little marked that it will be difficult to 
perceive it; and if in the morning, or when the sun 
strikes more directly on the windows, they appear to 
be in greater numbers, it can only be ascribed to the 
increase of heat that comes from it. All things equal 
in the preliminary dispositions for the brood, it is 
evident that they may all be hatched nearly at the 
same time. And when we send them to others to be 
attended till the end of their growth, we must give 
them, on sheets of paper large enough to hold them, an 



58 

ounce all hatched at the same time, and who must of 
consequence all have a like development. The divi- 
sion of the worms hatched the first, second and third 
day, will facilitate this. In the hot-house they cannot 
pass this term. 



CHAP. VI. 



OF THE DIFFERENT AGES OF THE SILK WORM. 

The most important point in the management of 
silk worms is to know well and to establish in a per- 
manent and invariable manner the degrees of heat and 
the temperature in which it is necesary to keep them, 
without change, during their existence. We find in 
the abbe Rosier the following instructions on this 
subject: — 

It cannot be said that the silk worm dreads such or 
such a degree of heat, in our climate, however much 
that may be. Originating in Asia, it supports in its 
native country a heat certainly greater than it can ex- 
perience in Europe. But it suffers from a sudden 
change from a low degree of heat to a higher. It 
may be said in general that a too sudden change from 
cold to heat and from heat to cold is injurious to it. 
In its own country it is not exposed to these vicissitudes. 



S9 



Here, therefore, it succeeds very well, and does not 
require all the care that we are obliged to bestow on 
it in our climate. With us, on the contrary, the tem- 
perature of the atmosphere is very variable, and with- 
out the aid of art we cannot have it constant in the 
ateliers where we raise the worms. 

A long series of experiments has proved that in 
France the 16th degree of heat, indicated by the ther- 
mometers of Reaumur,* is the most suitable to the silk 
worm. Some raisers have carried it up to 18 and 
even to twenty degrees, and the worms have suc_ 
ceeded equally well. We must never lose sight of 
the fact that the silk worm fears not heat, but too sudden 
change from one condition to the other. Thus, in 
making him pass in a single day from the 16th to the 
20th degree, he will experience a malady very hurt- 
ful to his constitution. If it so happen that we are 
obliged to hasten the growth of the worm, on account 
of the leaf whose vegetation we cannot arrest, it must 
be done little by little, and so as to be scarcely per- 
ceptible to them; for the silk worms suffer, so to 
speak, as much by the changes of temperature, as by 
the difficulty of breathing when immersed in a noxious 
air. 

M. Boissier de Sauvages relates, that being pressed 
by the sprouting of the leaves, already well started in 
the first days of April, he gave to his worms about 
30 degrees of heat in the two first days after they 
were hatched, and about 28 during the remainder of 
the first and second age. There were but nine days 
from the birth to the second moulting, inclusive. All 

* The degree of heat is always by Reaumur, in this volume. 



60 

who saw them had not imagined that the silk worms 
could resist a heat, that in the space of a few minutes 
made themselves sweat in large drops. The walls 3 
the edges of the hurdles were so warm that the hand 
could not bear it. All of them must die, they were 
sure. However, it all came to the best, and to their 
great astonishment the crop was abundant. 

He gave afterward 27 to 28 degrees of heat 
in the first age, 25 or 26 to the second, and, what 
was singular, the durations of the first ages of these 
broods was nearly equal to the preceding, in which 
the worms had more heat; because perhaps there is a 
limit beyond which the life of insects cannot be 
shortened, whatever heat they experience. It is true 
the worms of this brood had had the same number of 
meals as in the usual treatment. But what is still 
more singular is, that the worms thus hastened required 
but five days to each of the two next moultings, al- 
though they were in a temperature of only 22 degrees, 
while worms which at the commencement have not 
been pushed forward in this way, take, in a like de- 
gree of heat, seven or eight days to each of these 
same ages, that is, the third and fourth. It seems to 
be sufficient to have set these little animals going on 
their course, in order to have them follow of them- 
selves the first impulse given, or the first habit they 
have been made to take. 

This method of which he speaks, which works a 
rapid growth, gives at the same time to the insects a 
vigor and activity that they retain in the following 
ages; which is an advantage in the quickened treat- 
ment, (that is to say, pushed forward by heat,) and 
which besides prevents many maladies. This hasten- 



61 

ing method abridges care and labor, and releases the 
superintendent sooner from the anxieties which, if he 
has only in a trifling degree a wish to succeed, scarcely 
quit him until he has gathered his crop of cocons. 

To follow this method it will be fit to give great at- 
tention to the more or less advanced state of the sea- 
son, to the sprouting of the leaf, if it is not afterward 
arrested by frost. On the other side, if the leaves 
appear late, and this is followed by heat which contin- 
ues long, as commonly ought to attend it, and mean- 
while but little fire is made in the atelier, they advance 
slowly and prolong their youth. Meanwhile the leaf 
grows and hardens; it has too much consistence for 
them, it is time to hasten them by a quick and warm 
treatment, in order that their progress following that of 
the leaf, should not be different from it, which is an 
essential point. 

If the raisers fortunately decide for this method, they 
have them warmed and hatched some days later than 
the others. More wisely still they wait eight days 
and calculate thence the duration of the ages, or rath- 
er they do yet better to wait and make their arrange- 
ments, so that the end of the feeding of the worm may 
correspond with the time when the leaf has come to its 
last degree of increase. 

It has been said above that the worms produced by 
one ounce of eggs at one hatching, must occupy in 
the first age, and till the first moulting, a space of 7 to 
8 feet square, of fourteen to fifteen in their second 
age, and of 30 to 35 in their third: in the fourth and 
last it must be at least 83 or 84. We must then make 
the quantity of food given them proportioned to the 
space, not forgetting that up to the first moulting, we 
6 



62 

must constantly keep them in a temperature of 19 
degrees : in the second age it may descend to 18; in 
the third to 17; and to sixteen in the fourth. These 
degrees of heat well fixed in mind, we shall then give 
them immediately after their birth, their arrangement 
and distribution on the papers, six pounds of young 
mulberry leaves cleansed and cut or hashed very 
small. In the second age it must be increased to 
eighteen pounds, but now less cut up; in the third we 
may go up to sixty pounds of leaves yet less cut; in 
the fourth we shall give them one hundred and eighty 
pounds cut only in half. 

However, some unforeseen circumstances may oc- 
cur that it will be difficult to calculate on beforehand. 
But with attention and foresight a person will be able 
to hatch the worms at the moment when the trees shall 
present their tender leaves, which should acquire a 
considerable firmness, in proportion as the worms have 
attained a more advanced growth; otherwise, it will 
be necessary to abandon them, and suffer them to 
perish, relying on getting a new supply, when an un- 
favorable season retards the sprouting of the leaves; 
although, if they have been made to hatch when the 
season is favorable, but which from unforeseen cir- 
cumstances has become bad, it is more easy to retard 
their growth, at least for some time, and to keep them 
back until there would be no more to fear in seeing 
them developed as fast as is natural to them, their 
growth being in accordance with that of the leaves. In 
the case where the leaf has not the requisite qualities, 
we may also diminish or increase it according to circum- 
stances; for all the quantities which have been deter- 
mined by approximation, though confirmed by repeated 



63 

experiments, depend almost entirely on the tempera- 
ture in which the worms have been nourished. In 
fine, the prescribed economy does not, in parallel 
cases, by any means forbid them to devour in some 
sort, with good appetite, as much as they may digest 
easily, and as will preserve them constantly in a vigor- 
ous condition, as good as it is remarkable. 

To economize the leaf, and obtain a crop as abun- 
dant as possible, should be the principal aim which all 
who would engage in raising the silk worm must have 
in view. It is known, by experience, that by overfeed- 
ing them, we not only lose the third, and sometimes 
more; but that by the accumulation of their litter, the 
little vigor which they enjoy during some periods of 
their existence undergoes changes in the time of their 
moulting, which, from an appetite very marked, makes 
them pass to a state of languor so visible, that if the 
cares and attentions are not redoubled, the worms be- 
come feeble, languishing, sick, and before long die, 
But if. on the contrary, we neglect nothing in the at- 
tentions to Jbe observed, — if we follow to the letter all 
the rules laid down for the best development of the 
worms, we shall harvest a quantity of cocons propor- 
tioned to the eggs brooded, and to the mulberry 
leaves consumed. For M. Dandolo assures us, 1st, 
that to obtain 110 or 120 lbs. of cocons from one 
ounce of eggs, there need not be used more than 1650 
lbs. of leaves. — 2d. that to obtain from an ounce of 
eggs but 55 or 60 lbs. of cocons he has employed 
nearly 1050 lbs. of leaves; at which rate nearly 2100 
lbs. of leaves would be necessary to obtain 110, or 
120 lbs. of cocons.— 3d. that the 110 or 120 lbs. of 
cocons obtained by one ounce of eggs are worth much 



64 

more than the same quantity obtained by two ounces 
of eggs. 

In fine, if, as M. Dandolo assures us, we may with 
an ounce of eggs, hatched and well attended, obtain 
nearly one hundred and sixty-five pounds of cocons, all 
that we receive short of this in a crop, must be consid- 
ered as a real loss, although the consumption of leaves 
have been much more considerable; and if we add to 
this the effect of the worms that have died, in the 
course of their development, or those that have sur- 
vived, we should agree that they are in such a state 
of indisposition and feebleness, that it will be impossi- 
ble to obtain any profit from them. For the more 
their number is diminished for want of care, the less 
silk of good quality is supplied by those that remain. 
It is desirable in this case, in order to remove all 
doubts, that it were possible to establish a comparison 
of the quality and quantity of cocons that proceed 
from the good method of taking care of the worms, 
and the bad one, which almost always results from 
custom and prejudice as much as from negligence. 
A series of approximate tables, in a course of years, 
with the meteorological indications of the atmosphere 
during the season, will be the best means to employ to 
ascertain all the losses caused by the ignorance from 
which the overseers will not depart, whatever efforts 
are made to draw them from it. 

I. THE FIRST AGE. 

Scarcely are the worms hatched and distributed on 
the squares of paper, when it will be necessary to 
give them, on the first day, food four times in succes- 



65 

sion. For this, some tender leaves are to be cut very 
small, with a knife, or other sharp instrument, (fig. 14, 
15, 16,) which must be distributed to them moderate- 
ly at the first meal — increasing them at the second, 
third, and fourth, at a distance of six hours or less, 
from one to another. The worm takes but an hour 
and a half, or two hours at most, to satisfy himself, 
and falls then into a sort of torpor, during which it is 
necessary to watch him, and to keep him in a temper- 
ature constantly equal, avoiding the alternatives of 
heat and cold. For five ounces of eggs we must place 
leaves to the worms on a space of thirty-six feet eight 
inches square, and distribute to them nearly four 
pounds of young mulberry leaves, tender and more- 
over cut up; while for one ounce of eggs hatched, we 
must give a pound and a half. Twenty inches 
square also is sufficient to contain them, so that the 
leaves may be every where eaten; and as the worms 
do not yet throw out any excremental matter, it is use- 
less to change their place. Besides, they are so frail 
and delicate, it is not possible to touch them with the 
hands. Finally, if some lose their way, they may be 
lifted adroitly with a birch twig or a needle, to put 
them in place, as well as to gather up the leaves 
which fall a little too far from the worms during the 
distribution. We must have care, after the distribution 
is finished, to collect them up with a small broom ; but, 
as has been observed, the worm at this period con- 
sumes in the space of twenty-four hours a quantity of 
leaves equal to his own weight, they must never be 
given to him all at once: we must, on the contrary, 
reserve a certain quantity of them to give them at 
intervals more or less distant, and principally in all 
6* 



66 

places where they seem to fail of it, because scantily 
distributed. 

On the second day, we must use in twenty-four 
hours six to seven pounds of fresh leaves, selected, 
picked and cut very small, observing to distribute a 
less quantity of them the first time, and to give them 
all that remains at the last distribution. We extend, 
we enlarge, little by little, the squares. Already the 
aspect of the worm is no longer the same, as the day 
before: his head is larger, and more white; the color 
of his body fades; his hairs are less apparent. 

On the third day, as the worms during this day eat 
very greedily — as they occupy already nearly two 
thirds of the sheets of paper, we shall give them three 
pounds of chopped leaves at each meal, and, in order 
best to satisfy them the first time, we give them half; 
and if it was consumed in one hour, we hasten the 
time of the second distribution. In the middle of an 
interval to the other we shall give them a half, though 
they may not be entirely recovered. Their particular 
disposition, and the quantity of leaves cut to distribute 
to them may serve for guides in the case mentioned. 
Their head toward the end of this day is whiter: they 
have grown to a much greater size; the hairs have 
nearly disappeared; the skin has become reddish; 
their body, and particularly the head, has become shin- 
ing, with a semi-transparence. 

On the fourth day, as the appetite of the worm di- 
minishes, we must also diminish the quantity of food. 
We should use then only seven pounds of cut leaves. 
The first distribution should be of two pounds and a 
quarter, and the others will go on diminishing as the 
leaves seem to be untouched. The superintendent 



67 

will also use caution in the subdivision of the interme- 
diate distributions. The leaves will fill them com- 
pletely. In their expansion at each meal, he will pre- 
vent their touching one another, which will be hurtful 
to them. As in the first part of this day many of the 
worms will move their heads, it is a sign that their 
skin troubles and burdens them. A great number eat 
but little. Their head has become enlarged: it is 
more shining in the evening. They are nearly all 
torpid, and do not eat: their body is almost transpa- 
rent; they approach their moulting; and if we observe 
them closely through the light, we find them a white 
mass, livid and yellowish. 

For the fifth day. — In the course of this day, a 
pound and a half, two pounds at most, of fresh leaves 
cut up, are sufficient. They must be distributed as 
equally as possible through the day, and only in the 
places where we perceive the worms ready to eat 
them. If the quantity indicated is not sufficient, it 
may be increased, as it may also be diminished if this 
becomes necessary. Too much attention cannot be 
given to the exactness of the distribution, as well as 
to the economy of the leaves. Toward evening the 
worms are nearly all drowsy; some just begin to 
awaken. 

The first moulting ended, the worm takes an ash 
color. His wormlike motion is very apparent: all his 
folds move back and forth on one another very free 
and easy. The leaf that he is to be fed with should 
be plucked at least eight hours before it is given to 
him. It may even be kept a day or two, in a cool and 
dry place, sheltered from the heat and light. 

Thus the first age of the worm is ordinarily complete 



68 

on the fifth day, not reckoning the two days to collect 
and arrange them, while they are hatching. At this 
time they have consumed little more than thirty pounds 
of leaves. They have increased to fourteen times 
their weight, in the space of six days, and are length- 
ened to four or five lines, when, on coming k from the 
egg, they are hardly one line # long. 

We recommend, moreover, to renew the air from 
time to time, which serves for their breathing in the 
small atelier, either by opening the door or window, if 
the season be pleasant: in the contrary case it may be 
warmed with stoves or chimneys, if there is any, to 
maintain the proper degree of heat equal and con- 
stant, in order that they may be kept sound, vigorous 
and in good health. It is also, in some sort, in this 
first period of their existence, that depend all the other 
circumstances that attend their condition to the end 
of life. 

II. SECOND AGE. 

Thus, on coming to their second age, the worms 
from five ounces of eggs will then occupy a space on 
the boards of seventy-three feet nearly, and all cov- 
ered with paper. The temperature in which they are 
kept must be from 18 to 19 degrees. To change their 
litter, we must wait till they are in great part awake; 
and if they go from the leaves where they have been 
placed, they must be changed immediately. In fine, 
their inequality is because they have not been ar- 
ranged in a manner suitable to their development — that 
many have eaten constantly, while some have remain- 

* Twelve lines to an inch. 



69 

ed under their litter, and all the others above, at the 
same time breathing an air where they are suffocated 
under the leaves, where they were torpid when they 
should be awake; or finally, because of the alterna- 
tives of drowsiness or animation, in which they have 
been obliged to pass, by the negligence of those who 
should have watched them. We also ascribe their 
inequality to this, that those last hatched have been 
placed in the least warm part of the atelier on the 
first day after being hatched, while they should have 
been placed in the warmest part. If the growth, last- 
ly, is not accelerated by additional distributions of 
food, to make them come on as fast as the others, it 
follows that in the period from the first to the second 
moulting, they continue in a state of drowsiness, while 
the others are awake and feeding; and that the slow 
ones eat only because they have not come to the time 
for sleeping. Thus it is very common to meet them of 
four different sizes on the same leaf, as also to see 
the latest born die. And it is on coming from their 
moulting chiefly that they experience great need of 
air, and of a pleasant and equal warmth, to hasten the 
strength and energy of their organs, which will be of 
the greatest utility in causing their growth, were it 
not that by the scaly snout that they lose by the moult- 
ing, and which is replaced by another, whose tenuity 
tends continually to be hardened by contact with the 
surrounding air. 

On the first day of the second age, it will be neces- 
sary to provide nearly nine or ten pounds of small 
branches of the mulberry, as tender as possible, and 
as many of fresh leaves cut small after being washed 
and culled. We must also make all preparations for 



70 

changing them, removing them in order to cleanse the 
first leaves of paper on which they were deposited- 
When we perceive they have well waked up, that they 
move their head, and hold it raised, and to the right, 
as if seeking something, and there are a considerable 
number that have removed themselves from their 
litter, we begin with those where the greatest move- 
ment is observed — we place across some small branch- 
es with their leaves which are placed at equal distances^ 
and as quickly as possible. Immediately they are 
covered in every part with worms which attach them- 
selves. Then, by means of some small transport ta- 
bles, smooth and even, (fig. 9,) we change the small 
mulberry branches that are covered, and instead of the 
squares we make sections that are extended in the 
middle of the tables disposed in such manner that we 
have nothing more but to enlarge them on two sides> 
when there is need; for then the worms should occupy 
only the half o^ the space that is destined for them. 

By means of these small tables, which rest only in 
their length on the hurdles or boards, we make the 
small branches fall softly by inclining them, to range 
them suitably with the hands, and dispose them in, 
order. Moreover, when we find on the litter a con- 
siderable number of worms awake, we place also some 
small branches to collect them, and place them as the 
preceding on the scattered leaves which may be 
counted as a distribution to them; for, in a short time 
after this new arrangement, none of it remains. So 
the contact of the warm air is sufficient to develope 
their jaws, enfeebled by the moulting; and, far from 
preferring to rest on the litter where they have before, 
they are seen to group on the small branches which 



71 

have served to transport them, so tenaciously that they 
remain there as in heaps; also to change them at all 
times, and in every period, this method above men- 
tioned is the preferable one, and the best to follow. 

One or two hours after the worms have been 
changed and placed on the boards, we must distribute 
to them three pounds of leaves, cut small as before. 
In case where the* worms, heaped up on the small 
branches that are stripped of their leaves, leave large 
spaces between each, other leaves must be distributed 
to them, in order that they may spread themselves out 
and enlarge the space that they occupy after this first 
repast. The two other meals for this day must be dis- 
tributed at six hours interval each. The removal of 
the worms being accomplished on the other boards, 
we roll up the pieces of paper that they occupied, one 
on another, to carry them out of the frame. For what 
remains is only excremental matter, mixed with frag- 
ments of leaves which have been administered to them 
since their birth. In thirty pounds of leaves we 
count that there is twenty-two and a half of it com- 
pletely digested. 

On the second day, the seventh after their birth, we 
distribute to them thirty pounds of leaves, cut up, 
giving them in four times at six hours interval. The 
two last distributions may be a little larger than the 
first. We shall enlarge the sections in the evening, 
so that they may be two thirds completely occupied. 
The worm, in his whole length, becomes a clear 
white. His head is a little larger. We lay them 
out, as has been said, taking them on the small 
branches to put them on the places where there are 
but few. For it is extremely important that they be 
equally divided. 



72 

On the third day, the eighth from the egg, the 
two first distributions should be the greatest. Thirty- 
three pounds of leaves, cut small, must be used in the 
day; taking care, moreover, to apportion them accord- 
ing to the want of the worms. For toward the close 
of the day not only their appetite diminishes, but they 
lift their heads high, they eat no more, and fall into 
a very marked drowsiness. We must enlarge their 
space so that they occupy four-fifths of it. 

On the fourth day, the ninth, we should only distribute 
to them nine pounds of leaves, cleansed and cut up, 
observing always to scatter them equally and lightly. 
Once that they are completely asleep, they do not 
wake till the next day after their moulting. In cal- 
culating their consumption of ninety pounds of leaves, 
cut up, and of small branches, with what remains of the 
litter, it is demonstrated that twenty-one pounds is 
necessary to feed each ounce of worms separately. 

During this second period they become of a grey 
color. Their small hairs shortened are almost imper- 
ceptible; their snout which was black has whitened, 
and is softened to its present form and color. It 
hardens again, in proportion to its progress, and by 
reason of the need that it must have of more solid 
aliment. On its back we perceive two lines curved 
opposite to one another. He is lengthened two lines: 
already he has need of a greater quantity of air to 
breathe: his respiration singularly increased, requires 
to be often renewed, either by opening the windows 
when the external air is mild, or in opening the door, 
or any small opening that is practicable, and until the 
thermometer descends one degree. 



73 



III. THIRD AGE. 



On the first day, the tenth from their birth, the pro- 
vision must consist of fifteen pounds of fresh leaves, 
cleansed and less cut up than for the preceding, to 
which must be joined as much of the small branches. 
The worms of five ounces of eggs will occupy 174 
feet, which we must take care to cover with paper. 
They must be kept in a temperature of 17 to 18 
degrees. .They are not to be changed till nearly all 
are perceived to leave their state of torpor, which is 
ordinarily in 24 or 30 hours at most, and is shown by 
a movement of the head in a rotary direction. And 
the wind cannot hurt them, though in blowing over 
them they appear to experience something disagreea- 
ble. In changing them after this moulting, the same 
precautions must be taken as in the preceding. If 
the space to be occupied by the worms in their 
different ages is taken into calculation, it is not an 
easy matter to know how to raise them, to clean and 
dispose them on the hurdles, where they are left till 
they have finished their moulting, at proper distances 
one from another. They eat with the greatest facil- 
ity. Their litter is not altered in any manner. 
Their first distribution will consist in the five pounds 
of small branches filled with leaves, which, when they 
are eaten, must be replaced by seven or eight] pounds 
of other leaves equally distributed by means of the 
broom. The point most essential is then for the 
person charged with the raising and care of the 
worms, to make an equal division of them on the 
boards or hurdles, as well as to observe a just distri- 
bution of leaves with which they are fed; for it is a 
7 



74 

clear loss for them to consume too much food, and 
the surplus will only serve to augment the litter, which 
will bring an inevitable fermentation, and may be the 
cause occasionally of many morbid affections. We fin- 
ish this day by a distribution of seven pounds of leaves. 
Indeed, if not possible to make it, they may be pre- 
served to add to those of the next day. 

A very little promptness given to them will enable 
us, in an hour or two at most, to change worms enough 
to cover 174 feet of boards or hurdles. As soon as 
possible after the change of the worms the litter must 
be rolled up with the paper, and removed away. Be- 
fore clearing them of it, we must look that no torpid 
worms remain, whom the contact of air will reanimate 
more quickly than that of the atelier, and after having 
placed them on the small branches, we must put them 
with the others. As to those last taken up, we must 
keep thern ori separate boards, in the warmest parts of 
the atelier, and well scattered. 

Dating from this time, their consumption is very 
great. To feed them easily, recourse may be had to 
square paniers, (fig. 19,) which may be hung around with 
the aid of a hook, and thence may the leaves be drawn 
with both hands, and distributed at will, either to the 
height of the individual or on the highest boards, by 
means of small steps or ladders very light. Before 
they iiave finished eating three or four of these 
distributions, it will be perceived they .have sensibly 
increased, that their color is clear, and also that their 
nose is elongated. 

On the second day, the eleventh from their birth, 
we must be provided with ninety pounds of leaves 
cut, the two first distributions of which shall be less 



75 

than the two last, because that in the evening the 
worms increase in appetite. We must increase also 
a little the space that they occupy. 

On the third day, the twelfth from their birth, we give 
them seven pounds of cut leaves more than the day 
before, observing to distribute them in much the 
larger quantities at the two first meals. For the distri- 
butions of the evening ought to be less, because they 
lose their appetite, and they increase very much. 
They whiten, become transparent; their head is 
lengthened; the movements which they make with it 
precede the moment when they are about to fall into 
drowsiness. 

On the fourth day, which is the thirteenth from 
their birth, the provision will be only fifty-two pounds 
of leaves, because the appetite of the worms is much 
less. The largest number is already torpid. The 
distribution at the first meal should be the most abun- 
dant, and the last much less. We do not even spread 
the leaves but in the places where they fall, which 
want makes them perceive. In cases where most of 
them become torpid, and that some are found on the 
same board who still want to eat, we need not fear to 
give them something, in order that they may overtake 
the others. We always obtain excellent effects from 
these intermediate repasts. 

On the fifth day, the fourteenth from their birth, the 
distribution of the cut leaves should not be but 
twenty-seven pounds for the whole day, scattered in 
all places where the want of them is perceived; since 
the day before this we find every where the froth and 
the silk which the worms have thrown out. We see 
them seeking to go to sleep in free currents of air, 



76 

in dry places, holding their heads continually raised; 
and those that are obliged to remain on the litter 
raise themselves above, keeping the same position. 
At the instant when they pass into the state of mo- 
mentary torpor, they evacuate all that they have 
within. The intestinal canal is distended by a lym- 
phatic fluid, yellowish and transparent. The epider- 
mis becomes wrinkled and dry before it is separated. 
Through the whole time of their moulting the air of 
the atelier must be fanned and renewed, all of it 
retaining the temperature to the same height that it 
had before. 

On the sixth day, the fifteenth from their birth, the 
largest part of the worms is disposed to go into the 
state of torpor; their third age is finished; they have 
passed it over in the space of six days, consuming 
three hundred pounds of leaves and small branches, 
which gives nearly sixty-nine pounds to the ounce of 
eggs. Their nose is lengthened, jutting out; from 
black, which it was before, it becomes red, greyish. 
Their head, their body have sensibly increased. Their 
body marked with wrinkles, as well as the head 
become smooth. We no longer see any hairiness. 
Their general color draws near to the orange yellow. 
All their feet toward their posterior extremity spread, 
enable them to adhere strongly to what they touch in 
feeding. We hear also a slight noise, which they 
make in moving from place to place, which ceases 
when they become fixed, and becomes more strong as 
they advance in age. Since the second moulting 
they have increased in length six lines, and have in- 
creased to four times their weight. 



77 



IV. FOURTH AGE. 



The space that the worms must occupy is 412 feet 
square, and the temperature in which they must be kept, 
may be raised from 16 to 17 degrees; and though it 
should rise to 18, or even above, we need have no 
anxiety, provided the internal air be renewed from 
time to time by the opening of doors or windows. By 
this means we prevent the litter, which is mostly 
moist, from undergoing fermentation, and throwing 
out exhalations that would be hurtful to the worms. 
Many times whole broods have perished for want of 
these precautions. 

The hurdles are not to be changed till after we 
have seen nearly all of them revive from their to/^or. 
Those first awake should be put in the least warm 
places, and the last in those which are of th^ highest 
temperature. By means of a thermometer it will be 
easy to ascertain them. These attentions are indis- 
pensable when we wish to have them all mount to- 
gether. Thus, the third moulting of the worms once 
finished, we must bring them inte the large atelier, 
not to be again removed, wherf .there must be, in 
order that they may be at eas?, 920 feet of surface, 
either in one large room or iv two or three small ones, 
but contiguous and adjoining, for the greater prompt- 
ness and facility in the service. Meantime, as on 
leaving their third age they occupy but 459 feet s L 
must be marked out beforehand, and they must be 
arranged by sections, which may be enlarged at wil' 
and gradually. It results from this arrangement, 
essential in all broods of worms, 1st. that the litter 

which it is not necessary to take away in the fourth 

7# 



78 

age, increases but imperceptibly, and as it is not very 
thick, does not disengage any very strong odor. 2d. 
by the distributions of the leaves, placed at proper 
distances, it results that they are very equally con- 
sumed; they have not then time to decay, and yet less 
to be tainted. 3d. that the worms conveniently 
scattered eat much better and at their ease. It is 
much more easy also to move them, and the perspira- 
tion as well as the respiration is performed in a manner 
very advantageous to them. 

For the first day, which is the sixteenth of their 
existence, we must prepare thirty-eight pounds of 
small branches and sixty pounds of leaves, cut in two 
or three, with the instrument, (fig. IB.) When it is 
necessary to change the worms, we spread some of 
the smill branches of mulberry on two hurdles only 
at first, aad when they are full and covered, we remove 
them by n.eans of the tables. It is very easy to 
supply the BiLall branches with leaves, by tying them 
together in greater or less numbers by their petioles, 
(stems,) in order to lay them out and to lift them away 
all at once when Uled with worms. This change is 
soon made by only tv persons having charge of the 
worms, and two others to remove them as quick as 
possible to the place destined for them. If some 
remain who are still torpid, they are to be collected 
together in a separate place. We distribute then to 
the whole mass thirty pounds of leaves, the whole 
length of the company, which we must preserve every 
where of the same breadth, taking up the scattered 
leaves by means of the small broom. Soon all are 
equally disposed over the hurdles ; and if the leaf is yet 
cut for three or four days, it makes them eat a little 



79 

quicker, for the reason that it exhales more odor, and 
that it presents to them a greater number of edges. 
The second distribution being over toward evening, 
when it is entirely consumed the worm grows white, 
acquires strength and vigor, his motions are much 
more marked. 

For the second day, which is the seventeenth of 
their existence, we use 165 pounds of leaves, coarsely 
cut. We give them moderately of them, the three 
first times, and largely at the fourth distribution, en- 
larging by degrees the space they occupy, because 
they increase very much in size. They acquire at 
the same time a color much whiter. 

For the third day, the eighteenth of their existence, 
we shall give them in four meals 225 pounds of leaves, 
cleansed and coarsely cut; observing also that the 
two last distributions must be much larger than the 
two first. 

For the fourth day, or the nineteenth from their 
birth, two hundred and fifty-five pounds of leaves will 
be used. The three first distributions must be made 
so that there may be consumed nearly seventy-five 
pounds at each time, and forty-five at the last. To- 
ward the end of the day, the worm attains to the 
length of 18 lines. He is then much whiter than he 
was the day before. 

For the fifth day, or the twentieth of their exist- 
ence, as the appetite of the worm is sensibly diminish- 
ed, we shall use only one hundred and twenty pounds 
of leaves, coarsely cut. The first distribution is to 
be the most considerable. They nearly all fall into 
torpor and drowsiness. The other distributions are 
only to be made in the places where some worms 



80 

remain not torpid. Generally they have increased 
two lines more. 

For the sixth day, the twenty-first of their exist- 
ence, thirty-five pounds of leaves will be quite enough 
for their nourishment, scattered and distributed only 
where the want of them is apparent. Since yesterday 
they have evacuated, they are become much smaller, 
the green color is effaced; the skin is scattered with 
wrinkles scarce visible. 

On the seventh day, the twenty-second of their 
existence, they accomplish their fourth moulting, and 
awake from their drowsiness. During these last 
seven days they have lengthened six lines, have be- 
come of a color greyish and rather brown, with an 
increase of weight very perceptible. During the 
whole of this age it is absolutely necessary that the 
air of the atelier should be preserved in a state of 
continual purity. It must also be changed as often 
as appears necessary, by the opening of doors, of 
windows, vents and ventilators, whenever the external 
temperature is nearly like that of the atelier; and in 
the contrary case, by making some fire in the chimney 
with dry combustibles. A state of purity in the air 
in which the worms are constantly immersed, is of the 
first necessity to preserve their existence in a condition 
of sustained vigor, and to prevent them from con- 
tracting maladies. All persons also occupied in 
taking care of them ought to have no disagreeable 
sensations in respiring the air of the atelier; and when 
they feel the least pain or disagreeable sensation in the 
action of the bowels, they must immediately use all the 
means at hand to renew the air about them. 



81 



FIFTH AGE. 



On the first day, which is the twenty-third from the 
birth of the silk worm, the fourth moulting, is finished, 
and nearly all are revived from their drowsiness. 
They must be kept in a temperature of 16 to 17°. 
Spread over 918 feet of boards by a sufficient number 
of persons, their work must be finished in eight hours 
at most. The first distribution will amount to ninety 
pounds of small branches or of whole leaves, and as 
much at the others, having been first cleansed. The 
branches will be scattered on four or five hurdles. 
Once filled with the worms, we remove them on to the 
others, in the middle of which is left a space larger 
than half. We proceed then to the cleansing of 
those that are vacant, and all those remaining torpid 
are collected together, as we have said above, on 
separate boards, to be exposed to the warmest place 
of the atelier, and so nursed that they may arrive as 
soon and at the same time as the others, at the ap- 
pointed time for mounting. 

If good care has been given in the first placing of 
the worms on half of the boards, if the vacant space 
has been well preserved in the middle, in two times, 
all the worms will be equally scattered in the whole 
interior of the atelier, and in a suitable manner; the 
leaves which were on the branches used have served 
for one of their repasts. What remains of the leaves 
and of other branches, will be distributed to them at six 
hours interval, sweeping together with the small 
broom all that shall be scattered from the line, and 
dispersing the worms where too much heaped up,, to 
the places where there are less. At the last meal. 



which will only be of forty-five pounds of leaves, the 
sections are to be again enlarged. All appear then 
to enjoy a vigor well marked. We should give them 
some air, by opening the windows, if the external 
temperature is nearly the same as that of the atelier, 
especially while we are cleansing them; and if we pay 
a little regard to the situation of the hygrometer and 
thermometer, it will not be difficult to know what 
changes can be made in the temperature of the air 
surrounding them. 

On the second day, the twenty-fourth from their 
birth, we shall distribute to the worms, continually 
enlarging their sections, two hundred and seventy 
pounds of clean leaves, which they will take in the 
following manner, to wit: fifty-two pounds at the first 
time, and ninety-seven pounds at the last. It will be 
very apparent that toward the close of the day, they 
are still much whiter than they were the day before, 
and that they tend continually to expand themselves. 

On the third day, the twenty-fifth from their birth, 
we shall distribute to the worms, who from this time 
consume much more, the quantity of four hundred 
and twenty pounds of clean leaves. The first time, 
we shall give them seventy-seven pounds, the second 
and third, a little more than a hundred pounds, and 
finally, the fourth a hundred and twenty pounds. In- 
deed, they may eat much more, but the quantity here 
indicated has always appeared to be sufficient to pre- 
serve them vigorous, when attention also is added to 
enlarge the sections, in proportion as the leaves are 
given to them, because they attain to twenty-six 
and twenty-eight lines in length. Their whiteness 
increases also very much. 



83 

On the fourth day, the twenty-sixth from their birth, 
the quantity of leaves to be distributed to them, must 
be still further increased. We should give them at 
the first distribution one hundred and twenty pounds; 
at the two following one hundred and thirty-five, and 
at the last, even one hundred and Mty, because they 
increase in appetite, and because having attained in 
a short time to the length of about three inches, they 
need much more. We need not fear, at this time, to 
give them five hundred and forty pounds of leaves. 

On the fifth day, the twenty-seventh from their 
birth, the provision must be increased to eight hun- 
dred and ten pounds, of which the first distribution 
shall be one hundred and fifty pounds, the last two 
hundred and ten pounds, and the two intermediate 
two hundred and twenty, and two hundred and thirty. 
It is also very often of indispensable necessity to 
make some partial distributions in the intervals be- 
tween the chief meals, especially in places where we 
perceive the worms may have been a long time fast- 
ing. If we wish to clean the hurdles, it must be done 
at the close of the day, or early the next day, distrib- 
uting the leaf on four hurdles at a time. But as we 
do not again change the worms, as we do not again 
remove them from the place they occupy, we take it 
in the manner following. A short time after the leaf 
has been distributed, and that it is covered with worms, 
we place them as quick as possible on the small ta- 
bles, supported on the edge of the hurdles: we take 
away immediately the litter, which is thrown into bas- 
kets similar to those in which the leaf is put for dis- 
tribution. The work finished, we replace the worms 
as they were before, and so on to the end. 



84 

With whatever quickness the change of litter is 
done, it is always quite long enough. We must then 
feed the first, in order not to leave any interval, and 
that the meals shall be equally distributed between 
the last and the others. We must preserve also the 
interior of the atelier, under the same relative mois- 
ture, under the same atmospheric warmth, and the 
same air that it contains, to the end that all may be in 
a state suitable to preserve the worms in the vigorous 
condition acquired in the progress of their age. It is 
unnecessary to say, that the litter collected in the bas- 
kets must be carried out, and that in the handling 
made necessary, for the change of the leaves that are 
covered, good care must be had, of the manner of 
taking them up, so that the worms may not be injured 
by the fingers. 

On the sixth day, the twenty-eighth after their birth, 
if one has not witnessed the voracity with which the 
silk worm throws himself on all the leaves that are 
given him, we cannot give him a just idea of it. He 
attaches himself even to the berries, that by chance 
come in his way. On this day, we shall distribute to 
them, in four meals, nine hundred and seventy-five 
pounds of leaves. The last distribution will be, as 
much as possible, larger than the others. We ought 
not, also, to forget to add some in all the places 
where the worms seem to have need of it, in the in- 
tervals of the repast; for the saws, with which the 
worm tears what is given him, have become of a great 
length. He has attained to three inches in length; 
and if he is very white, soft to the touch, and of a 
velvet smoothness, he may be considered in a state of 
perfect health. 



85 

On the seventh day, the twenty-ninth after their 
birth, is the day when they come to the greatest length 
that they acquire, and to the fulness of their weight. 
It is often the case, that six of them weigh an ounce. 
This is the moment of their greatest vigor. We shall 
give to them, in larger quantity at the first time than 
the others, nearly nine hundred pounds of leaves, di- 
minishing them successively to the fourth, always add- 
ing the intermediate distributions, if they are made 
necessary by circumstances. Toward evening, their 
extremity, from white, which it was, takes a yellowish 
color. We say that they ripen. Their mastication 
sensibly diminishes. It is the same with their weight, 
and with their length. They throw out a large quan- 
tity of excremental matter; they are in a constant ex- 
halation, and vaporization; and if in about seven days 
they have doubled in length, they come soon to de- 
crease in the same manner. 

On the eighth day, the thirtieth from their birth, 
they have only need of six hundred and sixty pounds 
of leaves. We should choose the best possible, and 
those taken from old trees; for the appetite dimin- 
ishes much. The first distribution will be the great- 
est. We give them, at this time, two hundred pounds, 
and go on diminishing to the fourth; and that they 
may ripen nearly at the same instant, we make, as be- 
fore, some intermediate distributions, wherever the 
need of it is apparent. Their yellow color deepens 
by rings over rings; they become shining, are no long- 
er greenish, diminish sensibly in bulk; they seek the 
edge of the hurdles, to evacuate what they ought to 
throw off; then, as soon as it is perceived, that they 
have come to maturity, and especially if the moisture 
8 



86 

is too great, we change the litter with the greatest 
possible quickness; we watch the state of the atmos- 
phere in which they are immersed, the air which sur- 
rounds them, and we remove all those circumstances 
that may become hurtful to them, in one way or an- 
other. 

On the ninth day, the thirty-first from their birth, the 
provision of leaves will be only four hundred and 
ninety-five pounds, to distribute everywhere, and as 
there shall be need. The worms become more and 
more yellow, the surface of the back is more shining, 
the rings are orange color, the nose transparent. We 
must avoid currents of air, and sudden changes of 
temperature, although it may be proved, that some 
vigorous and very healthy worms do not experience 
any remarkable inconvenience, when even they are 
exposed to the various inclemencies of the seasons. 

Thus, the silk worms, from their birth to this time, 
have become nearly forty times as large as they were, 
and in the space of a month, they have become nine 
thousand times heavier than they were when hatched. 
The most active period of their transient life, is the 
space of the fifth age, which is nine days. Finally, 
to arrive at perfect maturity, there is yet need of 
great watchfulness. It is so even in laying aside the 
skin which covers them, that they may become 
chrysalis, losing at the same time half of their weight 
and bulk. The black transverse lines reappear on 
their back, and the scaly prolongation of the nose be- 
comes blackish, and shining, and very hard. Their 
whiteness is much more perfect than it has yet been. 
If we touch them, we find them fleshy and like velvet, 
especially if they are vigorous and healthy. It is also 






87 

the time, not only to keep them in a high state of tem- 
perature, but also to renew the air as often as neces- 
sary, were it only to favor the operation of the perspi- 
ration that exudes continually from them, in these last 
moments of their life. 

In the last period of the fifth age, in order to the 
formation, and complete perfection of the cocon by 
the continual shedding of silk, even to the moment 
when the worm becomes a chrysalis, it is necessary 
that the silk worm should come to be composed only 
of two substances — one silky, and the other purely 
animal, and that he shall have evacuated all excre- 
mental matter contained in the whole length of the 
intestine; which keeps them, so to speak, in a state 
of complete property ; # to' administer to them at the 
same time more of the leaf, not only to fill up this day, 
but also to await, sometimes, twenty-four hours long- 
er, their complete maturity. It is known by the fol- 
lowing signs. On the tenth day, the thirty-second 
from their birth, if we give them fresh leaves, if they 
rise up, if they do not eat, if they hold their neck ex- 
tended, their head elevated as if they were seeking 
something, if they are transparent and of a handsome 
yellow, when they rise on the hurdles where they have 
been supported, mounting slowly, and when they 
come to the edge of it, seeking to go farther, when 
their rings disappear, and their greenish color is 
wholly changed to an orange yellow — then some wrin- 
kles appear on the neck, and the whole body becomes 
flabby: in fine, when placing one of the worms in 
the hollow of the hand, we view it in the direction of 

* That is, animal and silky matter exclusively. [Trans.] 



88 

the light, and perceive that everywhere it is traversed 
with luminous rays, we must immediately arrange 
every thing convenient to favor the mounting, for fear 
lest the searches they may make, hy exhausting them, 
will cause them to lose their silk. 

From this moment, we must occupy ourselves in 
preparing all things that may be necessary for the 
mounting. For this purpose, we collect a sufficient 
quantity of dog-grass, small chosen branches of young 
oak, straw of rape-seed, broom gone to seed, and es- 
pecially heath. These are preferable to all the oth- 
ers, especially in the second year they are employed 
to this use. But we must have the precaution to pass 
them over a clear flame, which we may easily obtain 
with those that we would throw away, in order to burn 
the small ends, and destroy the foam with which they 
are impregnated the first time that they are used. 
Striking it on a block or large stone, we easily de- 
prive the whole mass of the small ends, with their 
leaves, making it into bundles, which we roll together., 
in order to use the following year. For the rest, 
whatever may be chosen for the abode of the worms, 
we must always take fresh young branches of green 
flexible plants, pruning off the most slender extremi- 
ties which may be too weak. Finally, all bushes from 
which we have stripped the leaves, and taken off their 
last small branches will be very convenient, made 
into fascicules or small fagots, like a broom. We must 
also take care, in forming them, as well the thin, as 
the thicker, to place them one by the side of the 
other, with an interval of twelve or fifteen inches at 
most, supporting them at the lower part by the side, 
where they are attached to the hurdles, and at the top 



S9 

by the lower part of that which may serve for a ceil- 
ing, and at the same time, sustain them separated in 
the form of successive arches. All the interior of the 
boards thus filled, represent sufficiently well, small 
vaults, to which, after this particular disposition, the 
worm feeders have given the name of cabins. 

The small branches, which we take by the handful, 
must be arranged so that, touching the under part of 
the hurdle, which serves it for covering and ceiling, 
they may form a sort of arch; the base of which com- 
mences on that on which they are fixed, They are 
to be disposed, so that the worms which rise may not 
fall. The small branches, a little longer than the dis- 
tance between the two hurdles, will allow of their be- 
ing bent in such manner that the worms that have 
climbed may not foul, by the excrement they throw 
out, those that follow, which must happen for want 
of all the precautions mentioned. They should be fan 
shaped, in order that the air may circulate well through 
the boughs, and that the worm may not be at all con- 
strained in the labor of the cocon, and especially that 
he may not make his cocons double, which always oc- 
casions loss in the product. If we use hurdles, we set 
up the fagots between the rushes. In case we use 
boards, it will be enough to place them on their ends 
in order to make them keep erect. Finally, if on this 
day we perceive that they seek to rise, we carry them 
to the foot of the branches, either by the hands, or by 
placing at distances other small dry branches on the 
litter; and when they are fixed to them we remove 
them to the place where they are to remain till the 
end. However, it is better to await their motions, 
than to hasten them. Finally, for the last repast, we 
8* 



90 

should observe again if they have any wish to eat, 
and distribute to them the few leaves that remain, but 
with caution; for, by emptying themselves, this will 
only increase the litter, that must be cleaned again at 
least twice. For this, we wholly separate the worms, 
collecting them with the greatest attention not to press 
them with the fingers, and still less to bruise them 
with the hands. We collect them on the small tables; 
we clear away as quick as possible all the litter with a 
broom, in baskets, which are taken away as soon as 
they are filled, in order to replace the worms and dis- 
tribute some leaves to them again. The worms scat- 
tered in the empty places under the arches, ought to 
be so arranged as to be able to rise conveniently. 
During these last moments we should watch with at- 
tention the state of the air in the atelier. It must be 
continually refreshed by means of ventilators, opening 
of the doors and windows. By means of a lire in the 
chimney we shall keep it between 16 and 17 degrees. 
(Reaumur.) * When once the worms have arrived at 
their complete perfection, and it is perceived that they 
nearly all seek to rise, we finish by making a thick 
hedge, interposing fagots between those which are 
already fixed and to remain, in such manner as to pre- 
sent to them the greatest possible surface, adding con- 
stantly new ones, laid one across another. The great 

* A degree of Reaumur is equal to 2 1-4 Fahrenhait — and, the 
freezing point of Reaumur, (corresponding to 32° of Fahrenhait) be- 
in" 0, 2 1-4° ot' Fahrenhait, counted from 32 will give the degrees of 
Fahienhaii, lor any given degree of Reaumur. Thus, 16° of Reaumur 
is 36° Fahrenheit counted from 32°=68 p ,— 17°=70 1-4°,— 18°=72 
1-2°,— 19°=74 3-4°,— 20 Q =77°. In this volume the temperature is 
marked by Reaumur, in all cases. 



91 

object in this last operation is to avoid double cocons. 
We ought to take all means to prevent them. 

Whatever attentions we have been able to give in 
raising the silk worms, there will always be found 
some which have not the same vigor, and rise with 
great difficulty. It is necessary immediately to sep- 
arate them, and to transport them to a dry place, to 
attend upon them patiently; for often heat accelerates 
them. Although, when heaped together, the great 
moisture they exhale puts an end to their life, it can 
never become hurtful, if care be taken to establish a 
current of warm air sufficient to dry and destroy it. 
With watchfulness and care we shall not lose scarcely 
any. Finally, every thing is achieved by passing the 
broom everywhere over the hurdles and boards for 
the last cleansing, and to carry away promptly to the 
muck heap all the litter collected. In fine, till the fifth 
age is wholly ended, there are still particular cares 
and attentions which must not be neglected. Such 
are the following: The heat of the atelier must con- 
tinue to be elevated and maintained to 16 or 17 de- 
grees, the air must circulate freely in every way, and 
by currents renewed frequently enough to remove the 
abundant humidity that they continually exhale. We 
must collect all those who have by accident fallen 
after having mounted on the small fagots. When they 
are sufficiently protected by the thickness of the cocon, 
there will be no more danger in leaving them exposed 
to the open air. So we may refer to the following 
propositions, all that has been said relative to the silk 
worms during the ages that we have passed over. 
1st. not to subject them to any conditions that may 
disturb the healthy state of the matter which produces 



92 

the silk, and which they hold in reserve in the secre- 
tory organs. 2d. to preserve them in a state of per- 
manent dryness, to the end that the whole surface of 
their skin may retain the contractility necessary to 
their preservation. 3d. to keep them constantly in a 
current of pure atmospheric air, proper to preserve 
their transient life in a constant equilibrium, and not to 
expose them to become sick by the unwholesome 
effluvia that they are apt to hold in suspension, in the 
last periods especially, when they need to be in a 
vigorous and perfectly healthy state. 4th. the tem- 
perature which is necessary to them at the time of 
forming the cocon ought never to exceed 17 degrees. 
Higher than this it dries them too much, and the silk 
loses its quality, and especially, its fineness, by cause 
of the heat in which the worms have been kept. It 
should always be held from 16 to 16 1-2, rarely to 17. 
We may know that the fifth age of the worm is 
completed, when we press the cocon with the fingers, 
and perceive some resistance — when the whole en- 
velop is firm, hard, more or less resisting. Then they 
quit their first envelope and become chrysales. This is 
the beginning of their sixth age. 

If we consider the enormous quantity of vaporous, 
aeriform fluid that the silk worms exhale — if we exam- 
ine with attention all the excremental matter they 
throw out, in proportion as they come to their complete 
growth, and till after the full termination of their cocon, 
we shall not be surprised to find so many causes of 
disease acting on them. For besides the fragments 
mixed with the leaves, and all the small branches 
mingled with excrement — besides the infectious air, 
and all the other unwholesome conditions that may 



93 

result from the situation and particular arrangement of 
the atelier, it has been ascertained and proved by cer- 
tain experiments, that if three hundred and sixty worms 
united, at the period of their vigor may weigh three 
pounds and three ounces, that three days after they 
will not weigh more than two pounds seven ounces, 
and finally, after their cocons they will not weigh but a 
pound and a half. All the rest is evaporated in va- 
rious ways, either by exhalation or by evacuation of 
more solid matter. It will not, then, be astonishing, 
that in permitting to remain about the worms so many 
matters capable of passing to a speedy putrefaction, 
they may very easily contract diseases, at the very 
moment even that they begin to give confident hope of 
an abundant crop. We cannot therefore take too 
many precautions to preserve them, and not to let 
escape the fruit of the cares which they have cost.* 

VI. SIXTH AGE. 

It begins at the time when the silk worm is changed 
to a chrysalis, and ends at that when the moth comes 
out, after having left his envelop in the cocon, where 
it is found united with what formed his skin before this 
change. x\ll those that are vigorous and of good con- 
stitution finish the cocon in the third or fourth day, 
departing at the moment when they first secrete their 
saliva. However, this lasts not so long when the tem- 
perature is very elevated and the air extremely dry, 
as when it is the contrary. And this work is much 

* The French livre is equal to 1 lb. 2 oz. Eng.— or 16 lb. Fr. is 18 
lb. Eng. — 6600 lbs., the quantity above given to 5 oz. of worms, will 
be, therefore, 7425 lbs. Eng. [Trans.] 



94 

longer, if the worms are in the least degree languish- 
ing, or have been exposed to sudden changes of heat 
and cold — to too long continued moisture, or have re- 
spired an air charged with unwholesome miasma — or, 
in fine, when a great part of them have mounted the 
branches at different times, in consequence of their 
first direction not being well combined. Therefore, to 
gather the cocons, we must await the eighth day, count- 
ing from the time when they begin to rise, when also 
they lose something of their weight. We proceed, be- 
ginning with the lower hurdles and passing success- 
ively to the middle, and thence to the highest. We 
can much more easily reach all those situated out 
side the small fagots and round about them. The 
greatest attention must be given to the manner of de- 
taching the branches loaded with the cocons. They 
must be deposited one after another, without receiving 
any shock, and without throwing them or letting them 
fall, because we may thus wound the chrysales they 
contain, or cause the death of the worms that have 
not yet finished, which will not fail to spot the cocon. 
We pass them successively to each of the persons 
charged with detaching them, placing them before 
them, so that they have only to take them and place 
them in the baskets which were before disposed be- 
tween each of them. When the fagots are unloaded, 
we heap them together in bundles, to use them again, 
or to cast into the fire, if they are not worth preserv- 
ing. All the cocons which have not the requisite con- 
sistence, should be carefully separated; for those de- 
signed for sale ought to be also well selected: the 
others, though a quality a little inferior, cannot be 
used but in domestic works. We cast the cocons on 



95 

the hurdles as soon as they are detached, and for the 
better inspection place them at a suitable height. We 
must take care that all be finished at the same time, 
both inside and outside. 

We strip them as quick as possible of the floss 
which they have about them, which is produced only 
by the saliva of the worm shed before his true silky 
thread. 

The number of persons to be employed to finish ex- 
peditiously all the labor relating to the cocons, depends 
on the greater or less quantity that is obtained of 
them. The important thing is not to overlook any of 
them, and to disencumber them completely of their 
floss, to give them the condition required by the pur- 
chasers. After having separated those we wish to 
preserve for eggs for the next year, we choose them 
commonly small, of close texture, yellowish, approach- 
ing straw color, hard and firm at their extremities, 
with a kind of binding or constriction in the middle. 
We consider it useless to shake them, to be assured 
of the existence of the chrysalis, because it is proved 
that all the worms that have been well raised, that have 
formed their cocons when in vigorous and perfect 
health, are in a state suitable to give good moths. 

Although there are no very certain signs by which 
to know, on inspection, what cocons will furnish male 
moths, and not female, we are assured, however, that 
the smallest, having one or both ends pointed, with a 
marked constriction in their middle, contain the males — 
that those of the females are, on the contrary, well 
rounded toward their ends, thick, short, loose, and 
without any constriction in the middle. But all this 
is so vague and uncertain, that it is not rare to meet 



96 

the indices of which we have spoken in the one as 
well as the other, and that they cannot establish any 
thing but presumptions. 

The cocons designed to furnish eggs for the ensu- 
ing season, should, after being chosen, be kept in a 
dry place, and in a temperature of 15 to 18 degrees: 
higher, the moth comes out too soon: lower, it comes 
too late, which is equally injurious. We strip the 
cocons of the floss which envelopes them, to facilitate 
their egress, placing on one side those that we think 
females, and on the other those that we suppose males. 
They should not be thicker than three or four ranks, 
one over another, and sufficiently distant for the air to 
circulate freely in the interior, and not to have need 
to remove them often. In general, all the time that we 
are attending on the worms, their chrysales, and their 
moths, we should always keep them in a middling 
rather than in an atmosphere of very high temper- 
ature. 

We think, generally, that during a time of greater or 
less length the cocons lose something of their weight, 
and that afterward they become somewhat heavier. 
All the changes that happen to it depend only on the 
approach of the change of the chrysalis to the moth, 
because that then it disengages a very large quantity 
of moisture. 

VII. SEVENTH AGE. 

The birth, the coupling of the moths, the laying of 
the eg.gs and their preservation, form the completion 
of the ages of the silk worm. From the moment when 
we perceive one of the ends of the cocon to be moist- 



97 

•ened, the moth is formed. He comes out in some 
hours. Frequently only one is necessary, to give 
him time to pierce his envelope and disembarrass him 
of it. It will be very useful if when he gets his head 
and fore feet out, he may find some slightly rough sur- 
face to facilitate his egress, either by disposing the co- 
cons in layers, with care to fill up the interval separating 
them when the cocons from which the papilios have 
gone aretaken away, or by placing them on a table that 
has not been planed, and whose surface is unwrought 
and rough. 

A moth may, according to his particular strength, 
last ten, twelve, or fifteen days at most, supposing al- 
ways the atmosphere in a mild state and of middling 
temperature. Notwithstanding his wings, he canno 
take the least soar, nor raise himself in any manner. 
We must then dispose them in such way that we may 
be certain to obtain eggs having all the necessary 
qualities. Thus the place should be, if not completely 
dark, at least only light enough to be able to distin- 
guish objects. As soon as the sun is above the hori- 
zon, we see them come from the cocons, at first in 
small number, during the first hour. They increase in 
the second, and successively from the third to the 
fourth. The males are hardly out when they seem to 
manifest a desire for coupling. We place them on 
pieces of cloth capable of being changed when spot- 
ted. We dispose them on tables, and arrange them in 
a dry place, well aired, and dark. Those that are not 
together are brought together, one with another, to 
join the first. As much as possible we must note the 
hour of coupling, because that after they have con- 
tinued six hours, we should, taking them carefully, 



98 

separate them. All those that are left without coup- 
ling* will be shut up in boxes, until there is opportunity 
to approach them to form other couplings. Caution is 
to be used in letting in the light to see what passes in 
the place where the moths are, for it is a stimulant to 
them which it is difficult for them to resist, and which 
by making them beat their wings, dries them, so to 
speak, by the loss of the powder which covers them: 
but when they are in a low degree of heat we must 
watch the successive birth of the moths as well as of 
all the couplings which result from it. Thus in ob- 
serving the procedures which have been indicated, we 
shall obtain the following advantages. All the moths 
that come out, being separated for some hours before 
their coupling, may disencumber themselves of all 
whatever they are surcharged with. When they couple 
of themselves on the tables, if we take them up we do 
not approach them but once : they remain in a state of 
perfect tranquillity a\uring the whole time that the act of 
reproduction continues. As for those which are not 
coupled, if we wish to put them on the cloths we need 
not also approach them but once. As for those who, 
after the others, remain single, isolated or placed in the 
box, we do not approach them but once, after having 
found those who have failed to couple. 

Whatever may be the number of moths obtained, it 
is certain that we find among them often more males 
than females, and at other times more females than 
males. In the last case, we separate the males, with- 
out injuring them, at the fifth or toward the sixth hour 
after they have been coupled, to give them to those 
who have not had the males. At the moment of the 
laying we move them on pieces of cloth or papers pre- 



99 

pared beforehand, placing them in such manner that 
we may take them and change their place whenever 
there shall be need. If for this labor we would use a 
horse (or frame) of which M. Dandolo has given a 
description, (fig. 28,) a glance will be enough to com- 
prehend and see that the cloths, cut into sections and 
united by crossing, may receive the female at the 
time of laying, and preserve the eggs in the order and 
arrangement suitable for being kept, folded and rolled 
on one another, till the time it will be necessary to 
hatch them. The most common duration of the laying 
is from thirty-six to forty hours. All that come after 
can hardly be valued at a sixth part of what the female 
may give, and they are thinly scattered. All the parts 
of the cloths or papers that are not loaded with eggs, 
will serve to replace others in order to fill the inter- 
vals, and distribute equally the general laying. All 
the eggs, which at first are more or less yellow, become 
reddish, and afterward have a slight tinge of blue, ap- 
proaching slate. They pass alternately to these differ- 
ent shades in a space of eight or ten days, and at the 
twentieth they are as they will continue, lenticular, 
with a slight depression in the middle of their surface. 
To preserve them, they must be kept at first during 
some time in a temperature of 15 to \6 degrees. 
Then to dry well all the matters that have been secre- 
ted with the eggs, we roll up the papers, fold the 
cloths in squares, and deposit them on a board, which 
we suspend in a place, which, during the winter, will 
not have a temperature below zero, and will not pass 
the fifteenth degree above. From time to time we 
put them in the air, if it is only to prevent their alter- 
ation, inspecting them at least once a month. We 



100 

must prevent also their moisture, which more readiiy 
occasions loss, than all the rest of the inconveniences 
that have been mentioned. For when the eggs are 
not well taken care of, when they are imperfect, the 
maladies of the silk worms, to which they are subject 
after hatching depend very much on not having the 
temperature, during the coupling and laying, higher 
than 10 or 12 degrees. Those that have not been 
impregnated are of no importance; we do not speak 
of them. But those which have been in an imperfect 
manner, produce only worms that perish in the rais- 
ing. 

The same happens when the temperature has been 
raised too high, that is to say, to 20 or 22 degrees: too 
much haste on the side of the female, so that she had 
not had time to empty herself; retarding the male, 
who thereby is enfeebled beforehand, — these are the 
only causes of it. All this cannot take place when 
the papilios are kept in an atmosphere of 16 to 19 
degrees — when they are constantly dry — when in case 
of working with large quantities, not more than an 
ounce of eggs are spread, on a surface of three feet 
square on the cloth, which, for the rest of the time 
that we preserve them, should not be folded in more 
than six or eight foldings: finally, when the whole is- 
conveniently placed on boards suspended with cords, 
such as have been mentioned above. 



101 



CHAP. VII. 



OF DISEASES OBSERVED IN SILK- WORMS, DUR- 
ING THE TIME OF RAISING THEM. 

Although we are persuaded that the silk worms 
will never be affected with disease if they are kept 
always in conditions suitable to them, it is nevertheless 
necessary to enumerate here all the maladies with 
which they may be attacked. We borrow them from 
the Cours d 'Agriculture of the Abbe Rozier. 

OF THE ROUGE. 

A malady so named because of the red color, more 
or less deep, that the skin of the worm exhibits at the 
moment, or soon after he has come out of the shell. 
The worms attacked with this disorder, appear torpid, 
and as it were struck with asphyxia. Their rings dry 
up by degrees, and they look like true mummies. 
Their red color becomes white. This disorder is not 
always fatal to the worms that are attacked by it, in 
the first age, nor even in the following ages. Some- 
times they do not die till the fourth moulting, when 
they have consumed the leaf to no purpose. If their 
life is preserved to this period, they do not retain their 
red color. It will be easy to distinguish them, and to 
separate them from the others. They assume a much 
clearer tint, which makes them distinguishable by an 
9* 



102 



eye accustomed to observe them. Sometimes they go 
till they have mounted, and make cocons of no value, 
which are commonly called cafignons, because they 
are soft, and poorly spun. 



OF THE VACHES, FAT DISEASE, OR JAUNDICE, MORE 
COMMONLY GRASSERIE. 

Some writers divide this malady into three sorts: 
but the specific characters they give it, do not seem 
to be distinct enough to make us of that opinion. It 
may be that a variety of names for the same malady, 
in the different districts of country, is the cause of 
this division into three sorts. I agree that in one 
country it may present some circumstances, that we 
shall not observe in another. Notwithstanding this, 
I continue to think that this disease is the same, 
with some slight modifications, insufficient to give it a 
character that may essentially distinguish it. These 
are the true characteristics of this disease. 1st. The 
head of the worm is swollen. 2d. The skin covering 
the rings has the glossy appearance of varnish. 3d. 
The rings are bloated. 4th. The circumference of 
the respiratory organs is yellow, more or less deep. 

5th. The worm sheds a yellow water which appears 
such on the leaf. It exhibits itself commonly at the 
second moulting. It is rare at the others, and most so 
at the fourth. M. Constant de Castelet says, that 
this malady is occasioned by a viscous and acid liquor, 
which enters the two vessels or sacs which the worms 
have in their sides, and which being mixed with the 
gum with which they are to form their thread, opposes 



103 

its formation and consistence, and causes a general 
tension in all parts of the insect, which makes his feet 
lengthen. Soon after, they become soft, when they 
shrink up and die on their litter. The acrid humor 
that comes from them kills all the worms that it 
touches. Those who are attacked with this plague 
seem to know this; for they fly from the others, and 
withdraw themselves to the edge of the boards. If 
they have not time or strength to reach it, they die in 
the midst of the litter. Those who are well, fly from 
them also and retire apart. When we perceive that 
some worms are attacked with this malady, we should 
be cautious lest they should communicate it to others. 
We must then examine them with attention, and, on 
the least doubt, take those we believe to be attacked 
and carry them to the infirmary, where the change of 
air only may recover them, if the malady has made 
but little progress. As to those which are known to 
have the disease really fixed, there is no other expe- 
dient to adopt but to throw them into the dung heap, 
and cover them, so that the fowls shall not eat them, 
which may poison them. 



MORT BLANC WHITE DEATH, OR TRIPES. 

M. Rigaud de Lisle, a resident at Crest, is the first 
who has distinguished this disease from others. The 
worm, says he, being dead retains his appearance of 
health: it is necessary to touch him to know that he is 
dead. Otherwise we cannot better compare it than to 
tripe. 



104 



THE HARPIONS, OR PASSES, (GRIPES.) 

These vulgar denominations have passed from the 
southern provinces to the north, as the raising of 
worms has become known in the latter. The word 
harpion, is derived from the word claiv, or talon, and 
passe from to suffer. This disease is not really dis- 
tinct from the rouge; it is but a modification of it. 
That manifests itself in the first days after the birth of 
the worm, by a yellow color. This of the passes, 
is a little more deep. See what has been said of the 
rouge. These two last diseases, that is to say, the 
worms that we call harpions, and passes, become 
such by the same causes which give rise to the disease 
we call the rouge. The sick worms are known, 1st. 
by their color, drawing toward yellow. 2d. They are 
lean, their skin is wrinkled, and they are shorter than 
others of the same age. 3d. Their feet become 
lengthened, slender and hooked. 4th. They eat little, 
languish, and are in a state of decline. When there 
is any passes after the first moulting, we may make 
the attempt to nurse them in the infirmary, but 
as they will never be well, it is best to throw them 
away. And if, before the first moulting, we perceive 
that the brood is entirely infected with it, we must 
have recourse to new seed. 



LUZETTE, LUISETTE, OR CLAIRETTE. 

The number of worms attacked with this malady is 
commonly small. It appears after the moultings, but 
especially after the fourth. It does not proceed from 



105 

a defect in the brood, as some pretend. The cause 
of it must be attributed to some defect in the coupling 
and laying. The worms attacked by this disease, 
eat like the others, and increase in length equally 
with them, but not in thickness. The disease is man- 
ifested by the color of the worm, which becomes of a 
clear red, and afterward of a dingy white. Observing 
it with attention, we perceive that it lets fall a drop of 
viscous water, stringy, and that its body is transparent, 
which has given it. the name luzette, a name commonly 
given to the insects that shed light in the night. 
When we discover luzettes on the tables, we must 
throw them away. These worms eat the leaf, and 
are not able to wait to make the cocon. After the 
fourth moulting we find sometimes luzettes inclined to 
make their cocon. They have much motion, and go 
from one side to another to find where to place them- 
selves. We must not wait till they are exhausted by 
their running about, and lose all their silk. When 
they have arrived to this point we must profit of it, 
and place them in baskets where there are dry boughs 
or in cornets of paper. 



THE DRAGEES. 

This is not a disease of the silk worm, since the 
cocon is already made when it is called dragee. A 
dragee cocon does not contain a chrysalis, but a 
worm short and white, like a sugar plum. Hence 
comes the denomination. If the worm after having 
made his cocon, has not been able to change into a 
chrysalis, it is a proof that he is sick. But what sort 



106 

of disease is this? No person has yet been able to 
distinguish its symptoms. We find whole broods, of 
which all the cocons are infected with dragee for 
the most part. But, for the rest, we need not lament 
it; the silk of the cocons is of as good quality, as that 
of the others. We shall not experience any loss, ex- 
cept in selling the cocons, because they are very light, 
But if we reel them for our own profit, they will be 
equal. We know a dragee cocon by shaking it. 
The worm dried and enclosed makes a dry sound, 
which the other cocons do not give. 

Some other remarks on two maladies w T hich seem to 
be not wholly the same as those that have been men- 
tioned, have been published by M. Dandolo. They 
are those called in Lombardy calcinaccio, which, how- 
ever, very much resembles the dragees, and gattina. 
The first, says that author, is not a disease that is ob- 
served in other worms, not even in the caterpillars 
that live in the open air, which leaves no doubt but 
that it is an effect of bad treatment. This malady 
results from a particular disposition which may change 
the whole composition of the silk worm in all the periods 
of his life. The causes which produce it are such 
that sometimes it declares itself at once, and sometimes 
it remains concealed till the moment when the worm 
seeks to rise, and even till after he has made his 
cocon. It becomes general in an atelier, or is con- 
fined to a few worms, according as the cause which 
produces it is extended or restrained. But it is not 
always contagious. A worm dead by calcinaccio, put 
in direct contact with a worm in good health, does not 
act upon him at all. M. Decapitani having expressed 



107 

his opinion that calcinaccio was a catarrhal affection, 
produced by a suppression of respiration, M. Dan- 
dolo makes the ten following experiments: — 

1st. He placed the silk worms of an ounce of eggs 
in the upper story of his establishment, and left them 
exposed to all the changes of atmosphere, which were 
great at that time, up to the moment when they sought 
to rise. Many of them perished but none of calcination. 

2d. The silk worms of an ounce of eggs were 
removed, after the first moulting, into a small atelier, 
and brought up to the fifth day of the fifth age without 
ever renewing the air. Not a worm was affected 
with calcinaccio. 

3d. In the same atelier were placed a certain 
number of silk worms in boxes after the third moult- 
ing. The air was vitiated to such degree that it 
contained no more than seven or eight hundredth 
parts of oxygen. The worms nearly all died, without 
exhibiting any signs of calcinaccio. 

4th. A certain number of silk worms passed through 
their first moulting, were raised at ten degrees of tem- 
perature, and there was care taken to make them pass 
gradually to this degree. They were double the time 
in arriving from one moulting to another. At the 
fourth, they had only half the weight of those which 
are raised at the proper degree of heat, though they 
were as long as the common measure. There was 
great inequality in their labor, and one part was 
affected with a disease known under the name of 
gattina, of which we shall speak hereafter. The 
cocons did not weigh nearly two thirds of the common 
weight, and there was not a single worm affected with 
calcinaccio. 



108 

5th. The silk worms brought up in 14 degrees of 
temperature required 45 days from their birth to the 
fifth moulting. Two thirds died. They never had 
an appearance of health. They would never have 
risen, if the temperature had not been elevated. The 
few cocons they had, were of a middling quality; there 
were many of them small; they were very light. No 
worms were attacked with calcinaccio. 

6th. Worms raised in 15 degrees of heat took 
forty days from their birth to the completion of the 
fifth moulting. They exhibited little vigor; they 
sought warm places; many perished in raising; the 
cocons were light; but there was no calcinaccio. 

7th. After having chosen some worms in bad 
health, he exposed them to a high temperature, in 
order to excite again their respiration, and, according 
to the common opinion, to guard them against the 
disease of calcinaccio, that was supposed to have 
already commenced. The temperature was raised by 
degrees to 25 and 30 degrees. The worms did not 
sweat. Those that were really sick, died without any 
distinct symptoms of calcinaccio; the others passed 
over the course of their life with regularity. 

8th. Some silk worms were kept very thick on the 
hurdle during the whole time of their raising. They 
nearly all died, without showing signs of calcination. 

9th. Some silk worms, hatched spontaneously, had 
been raised, some in a low temperature, some in a 
high. At each moulting many of them perished, and 
of three thousand nine hundred, there did not remain 
at the moment of raising but two thousand six hundred ; 
a great portion of which were small and sick. There 
were but twelve hundred cocons of good quality. 



109 

10th. Finally, the silk worms hatched from half an 
ounce of eggs produced by moths that were affected 
with calcinaccio, were raised with usual care. The 
whole course of their life was regular. They were 
fine up to the time of rising, and made good cocons. 
M. Dandolo then remarked to those who were sur- 
prised at this phenomenon, that one need not fear 
maladies coming by the fecundation, but when it 
takes place by papilios of feeble constitution, or when 
there has not been the necessary care in obtaining or 
preserving them. 

As for the change or rather the degeneracy of the 
silk worm in gattine, this is a real malady peculiar to 
the insect, and perfectly like that to which all living 
animals may be subjected in consequence of bad food, 
or by water or air filled with deleterious substances, 
want of care — finally, by a bad original conformation 
of organs. We designate under the name of gattine 
every worm which is unable to accomplish the func- 
tions to which he is destined, according to the degree 
of change that he has experienced. He shows him- 
self different from the sound silk worms; he is restless 
at whatever age the disease commences; he does not 
choose to live near others; some lose their appetite; 
others, after having eaten well and lived a time of 
more or less length, die out of the hurdle, or even on 
the litter, if they are taken suddenly with the disease. 
We think there may be three causes capable to pro- 
duce it. 1st. The adulteration of the worms when 
hatched, from having been badly kept, or carried far 
without precaution. 2d. If we have not proceeded right 
in hatching the eggs in the hot-house. 3d. If after 
their birth good care has not been taken of the worms; 
10 



110 

that is to say, if they have been left a long time in a 
temperature too cold, or if we have neglected to take 
all necessary care during the moultings. There is 
never any sickness when the egg has been well fecun- 
dated, well preserved, and the silk worm well taken 
care of during all the time of his raising. 

,Thus the diseases of the silk worms have their 
origin in the particular mode that we are in habit of 
following, in raising them; such are imperfect 
att empts to keep them sheltered from the contact of 
the air, which makes them heap up in the frames or 
ateliers, very often too narrow for their numbers. As 
he atmosphere there is almost always without elas- 
ticity, they soon lose their appetite and fall into a 
state of stupor and languor. The air that surrounds 
them is saturated with and holds in suspension all the 
perspiration that escapes from their skin, passing it 
rapidly into fermentation; it acts also so much the 
more speedily, as the animal that is exposed to it has 
organs more feeble. Such is the cause of the touffe, 
which, when it is also aggravated by the heat of sum- 
mer, by the putrefaction of the litter, by the exhalations 
from it, becomes the most terrible plague, and the 
most destructive to silk worms. Next appears the 
muscardine, a disease in which the worm dead in a 
state of softness and flaccidity, dries up in a short time 
without losing any thing of his form.* He becomes 
sufficiently hard to be preserved a long time, if not 
exposed to moisture. I we examine attentively the 
worms that are attacked with it, we find them in a 

♦This seems to be the same or a similar disease to the calcinaccio. 
before named, in which the worm is calcined or reduced to powder. 



Ill 

state of heaviness, of immobility, of loathsomeness, of 
softness. Although without any particular index of 
this condition we perceive some become mus car dins, 
others morts blancs, or morts flats. It is necessary to 
take the more care, as the muscardine is epidemic, 
and as the worms taken in a healthy chamber and put 
in contact and mixed with the other sick worms, have 
nearly all contracted the disease and died. But the 
contagion is not declared till after several days of 
communication and mixture of the sound worms with 
those that are sick. It is also certain that it cannot 
be transmitted by the tables on which it has prevailed, 
and still less by the worms who have died of it. In 
the number of silk worms there are found some more 
robust than others, and who draw out imperfect 
cocons, fouled with a brown liquor of a nauseous odor, 
which has caused them to be called fondus (melted); 
others, after having climbed on the faggots, cannot 
continue to spin, and remain there suspended. They 
are known by the name ofcapelans. 



CHAP. VIII. 

MEANS OF REMEDYING THEM. 

In all these kinds of diseases we have not discovered 
any difference in the causes capable of producing 
them, and silk worms have been preserved under 
exposure to all contrary circumstances; to the open 



112 

air, even to pretty sharp cold, to often repeated neg- 
lect, to eat decayed leaves, to suffer, some by famine, 
often to be left to breathe, for a long time, a corrupt, 
vitiated air; while they are spread on litter half putrid, 
while the atmosphere with which they are continually 
surrounded is suffocating, and in no way fit for respi- 
ration, while the rainy season does not allow to give 
them also any but moist leaves, or even wet, for their 
daily nourishment, at the time when they have most 
need of them. The essential thing in such circum- 
stances is to employ all the means capable of renew- 
ing the air of the atelier. Such are fumigations with 
muriatic acid, the process and theory of which we 
owe to M. Guyton de Morveau, and the object of 
which is to purify the air infected by putrid or con- 
tagious miasmata. They may be made in different 
ways, as simple as they are easy, very little expen- 
sive, but which should vary according to circum- 
stances: first, If we have to purify a hall, or a place 
which is not inhabited, we set in the middle of it a 
warmer with lighted charcoal, on which we put a 
stone, or earthen vessel of suitable size; we throw 
in it three ounces of common sea-salt coarsely broken; 
then we pour in it, at a single time, two ounces of 
sulphuric acid, the oil of vitriol of commerce. There 
soon arises from this mixture an acid vapor very ex- 
pansive, which spreads into all parts of the room, and 
will produce coughing- and irritation of the eyes and 
throat, if we remain exposed to it. We must then, 
after having poured the sulphuric acid on the salt, 
retire immediately, shut the doors and windows of 
the room, and not enter it again till after some hours. 
We repeat this fumigation several times, if necessary, 



113 

and increase the quantity of the substances, if the 
place be large. Second, If we would purify the air 
of an atelier or coconery, or any other place in 
which we may be obliged to remain during the fumi- 
gation, we can do it in a more easy and slow manner. 
We take a small portable stove on which we place an 
earthen or stone vessel; we put in it, as before, some 
sea-salt; we pour on it, little by little, the oil of vitriol, 
in order not to have, all at once, a great disengagement 
of muriatic acid gas; and we move this small appa- 
ratus about, to the different parts of the room, which 
may be repeated more or less often as there is need. 
Third, We may increase the energy and efficacious- 
ness of these fumigations, by mixing with the quantity 
above indicated of sea-salt two drachms of black oxide 
of manganese in fine powder. Fourth, We obtain 
the same result without employing fire, by putting in 
a capsule, or large bottle of glass, earthen, or stone, 
four ounces of muriatic acid (marine acid, spirit of 
salt,) two drachms of black oxide of manganese in 
powder, a half drachm of nitric acid (aqua fortis of 
commerce.) There immediately arises from this 
mixture a volatile gas very expansive, very penetrat- 
ing, the expansion and disengagement of which is 
regulated by stopping closely, the vase or flagon con- 
taining the mixture. Fifth, Finally, the preferable 
mode, because the manual is most simple, most easy 
and in reach of every body, we may, for the daily use 
of a coconery or atelier, prepare beforehand in the 
proportions indicated, a mixture of sea-salt and man- 
ganese, and have some sulphuric acid in a separate 
flagon. Whenever it is necessary to make a fumiga- 
tion, all that is to be done is to put in an earthen ves- 
10* 



114 

sel some pinches of the powder or saline mixture, and 
to pour on it, successively by drops, a small spoonful 
of the acid. 

To understand what is the mode of action of these 
fumigations, how they are efficacious to destroy all 
infectious and contagious miasmata with which the air 
may be charged, it will be sufficient to observe that 
the muriatic acid gas is the most expansible, the most 
penetrating of all the gases, and also, that it is very 
greedy of combination. When, therefore, this gas is 
disengaged, is disseminated through the air, kept, 
restrained within the interior of a room, it seizes im- 
mediately the miasmata that it meets, and by conse- 
quence destroys their unwholesome properties, form- 
ing with them new compositions. But beside this 
chemical effect, well demonstrated by experiment and 
observation, as after these fumigations the air of the 
place remains a longer or shorter time impregnated 
with a certain quantity of muriatic acid gas, very 
perceptible by the peculiar odor it retains, it becomes 
to those who breathe it a powerful stimulant to excite 
the action of the organs, to increase the vital energy 
of the solids, and to change the composition of the 
fluids. Thus these fumigations should be considered 
not only as a preservative^ disinfecting means, proper 
to deprive the air of the contagious miasmata with 
which it may be charged; but also, used with skill 
and suitable precautions, they beco me valuable aux- 
iliaries in establishments for raising silk worms. 

From the foregoing remarks, it is evident that fumi- 
gations with muriatic acid are applicable every where 
and in every case, where the air is corrupted by 
miasmata or putrid exhalations. So it may be em- 



115 

ployed with the greatest advantage during the empty- 
ing of vaults, to decompose the ibetid gas that is dis- 
engaged from it, is spread through the whole interior 
of the dwelling, and often attacks the life and health 
of the workmen engaged in the labor. It may be 
employed with the same advantage in fabrics and 
manufactures, where we work in animal or vegetable 
substances which pass into putrefaction, in the ateliers 
of silk worms — in fine, in all places where the air is 
infected by collections of animals, by the excretions 
that come from their bodies, or by the vaporization of 
different substances that they continually secrete dur- 
ing their life. 



CHAP. IX. 

MANNER OF STIFLING THE CHRYSALIS IN THE 
COCON, AND OF REELING THE SILK. 

In the first days after taking them from the branch- 
es, after having selected all the cocons, from which 
we wish to have the moth (or papilio) for seed, we 
should occupy ourselves with stifling those that re- 
main. To accomplish this without injuring the thread 
which forms its texture, we have recourse to many 
processes. We shall relate here the principal. Some- 
times the vapor of camphor, of turpentine, and of sul- 
phur has been used; but all the modes of using it, be- 
ing more or less expensive, often present difficulties 



116 

so great, that these processes are in fact almost wholly 
abandoned. Recourse has been had to heat, and the 
cocons in which the chrysales were to be killed, 
have been exposed, during five or six days in succes- 
sion, to the rays of the summer sun. This is sufficient 
when no interruption happens. The cocons have 
also been subjected to a bath, continued for some 
minutes in boiling water. But the difficulty in drying 
them equally when they have been taken out, and the 
softening of the chrysales, which afterward passes to 
putrefaction, and spoils the silk, has caused this to be 
abandoned. Their exposure to the heat of an oven 
in baskets, or drawers, has been tried, by heating the 
bottom, which is of sheet-iron. But this procedure 
has with it also the inconvenience of crisping the 
surface of the cocon, and hurting the silk. It is, 
nevertheless, most generally followed by the majority 
of persons; and they take advantage in this way of 
the heat that remains after baking their bread. But 
the sweating of the chrysales, and the scorching of 
the cocons, make the exposure to the rays of the sun 
preferable. We lay them out on cloths in their beds, 
and leave them there during four or live hours of the 
greatest force of the rays. 

But by the mode of M. Dhombres of Alais, whose 
apparatus is formed of chests of copper, in a cabinet 
supporting drawers with canvass bottoms, he obtains 
a heat free from the acridness which the contact of 
iron or of a solid body too strongly heated always has. 
It may be varied and regulated at will, by means of a 
thermometer. The vapor of boiling water acts indi- 
rectly in this stifling apparatus. The copper chests 
two inches deep, form in a cabinet the support of 



117 

drawers with canvass bottoms in which are contained 
the cocons. The heat introduced into the upper chest 
at one of its corners by aid of a neck, (or mouth,) which 
is fitted to a tube separated from the copper, descends 
into the next chest by a pipe placed in the opposite 
diagonal corner, and so from story to story to the last. 
With ten drawers in place, and four others for change, 
containing twelve kilograms of cocons, arranged in 
beds of four inches thick, he can in an hour stifle 
from four to five hundred kilograms. But this appa- 
ratus will be so costly, that it can only be used in a 
large establishment. 

We have seen the chrysalis of white cocons die in 
less than a half hour with a heat of seventy-five de- 
grees, without the cocons having experienced any 
deterioration either in their color or texture; only 
their weight was diminished about one seventh. But 
all the methods make a like reduction; even exposure 
to the heat of the sun, which has been found good 
when the season is warm and propitious; for it is still 
to this last that we give the preference, as the most 
simple, most easy, and least expensive. 

To wind and reel the cocons to make skeins of a 
uniform and continued thread of silk, which constitutes 
tram, we have recourse to a mechanical operation, 
which requires the aid of warm water. We moisten 
the cocons with it, in order to soften them, and de- 
prive them of their floss. Thus, after having chosen 
them, when we have separated those which are double, 
after having put aside those that are imperfect and 
badly made, they are exposed to vapor in order to 
liquify their gummy substance, which keeps them to- 
gether in the cocon. Of all the modes used to obtain 



118 

this result, that of M. Gensouls is the most followed 
wherever silk worms are raised. It consists in the 
use of a tube of greater or less diameter, which car- 
ries, horizontally, the whole length of the atelier the 
vapor of boiling water; then, by means of a cock 
placed in reach of the reeler, she may heat at will the 
water she needs, by a pipe which is there insered, and 
led into the principal conduit. By this mode she need 
not suffer, as by the common furnaces, the heat of a 
burning fire; the smoke which arises from it, as in- 
convenient, as painful to the eyes, is not, in this mode, 
to be feared: it does not tarnish the whiteness of the 
silk: there is no need of stirring the fire to keep it 
up: five or six minutes are sufficient to raise the water 
to sixty degrees, and even more if required; and all 
the silks reeled by vapor are as good, as strong, as 
elastic as by any other process. Beside the economy 
of fuel, we can also substitute for the copper basons 
vessels made in the same form of wood, which will be 
still less expensive.* 

Immediately behind is placed the winding-mill. 
It is a frame composed of four pieces of wood put 
together and bound by traverses ; in their centre is 
an iron axle, on which is fixed a reel with four wings 
grooved, the upper of which is smooth and rounded. 
The motion which the reeler gives to it by means of 
a handle is communicated to two pullies by two 
claws or vertical shanks, the upper end of which is 
a spiral. Placed at the front part of the mill, they 
sustain the thread of silk rising from the bason to the 

* A method of reeling by steaming the cocons, has been invented 
by Mr. T. G. Fcssenden, of Boston, described in the silk Manual. 
[Trans.] 



119 

top of the reel. By means of these shanks, attached 
to a traversing rod, the silk is prevented from coming 
always on the same point on the reel. As in the 
most common reels, it did not return to the same 
place till after eight hundred and seventy-five turns 
of the great wheel of the reel, and this was too fre- 
quent, because it had not time to dry: other machine- 
ry has been supplied, by means of which the thread 
cannot come to the same point till after the two 
thousand six hundred and first revolution. Thus the 
moisture is no more to be feared. " The pulley attach- 
ed to the axle in the ordinary reels, acts, in the new ap- 
paratus, by a cord without end on a second double pulley, 
encompassed with a third, which is fixed to it, and which, 
of consequence, follows it and goes through the same 
revolutions. A second cord without end, which passes 
in the groove of this third pulley, communicates its 
movement to the fourth pulley, which moves the travers- 
ing rod. It is in the proportion of the different diameters 
of these wheels, that all the difficulty of the process con- 
sists; for the last pulley makes a thousand nine hundred 
and thirty-six turns, and the first two thousand six hun- 
dred and one, before they come again to the same point. 5? 
It has also been conceived to line the claws with 
cloth, so that the friction produced by it shall de- 
prive the thread of wisps, of loops, of knots, and of 
whatever might make it imperfect; by consequence 
of which the reeling becomes useless, the silk is 
drawn out and doubled. We avoid of course all 
these manipulations. 

The reeler, seated before or at the side of the 
reel, and of her bason, casts into the water it contains 
a number of cocons, more or less, always proportion- 



120 

ed to the kind of silk she wishes to obtain. She 
takes from five to twenty, to form a thread: she 
crosses the silk, twisting at the same time two threads 
in such a manner that she may reel them on the frame 
in two separate skeins. By running one over the 
other, the crossing and friction makes them stronger, 
and more round and smooth; but to avoid the inequal- 
ity produced by the difference in the turns given to 
the same silk, there has been substituted, for the 
shanks, a wheel set in the middle of a circle, and 
pierced with two holes in its diameter, which receive 
the threads, on coming from the wires, and by the 
rotary movement, which is given it by a packthread, 
whose length is measured by the number of turns 
the wheel must make, the threads are crossed any 
determinate number of times. 

Before commencing work, the drawer has passed 
over all the cocons that she has cast into the water in 
the bason, a small broom, very short, made of birch or 
broom, to separate the floss, and the coarse tram, 
which she takes off and puts aside. Then the end 
of the thread appears, which she passes, after it is 
loosened by the heat, through the guides, which are 
iron rods, in front, over the bason. The coarser thread 
that comes first, makes what are called cotes, [stalks.] 
After the first outside, she collects the threads with 
her fingers, twists them, crosses the end with the 
other skein, passes it into the guide, thence into the 
spiral shanks, attaching them to one of the wings of 
the reel. The reeler, her eyes fixed on the thread, 
turns the machine. She moderates it, or stops it, if 
the thread break, that the drawer may attach another 
to it, and obtain a thread, as even as possible. When 



121 

the cocon is wound off, she adds another of those 
that she has in reserve in the bason. All the chry- 
sales are put aside, to be thrown into the dung heap. 

In this manner we obtain silk, not twisted: this is 
the woof silk: the others, designated under the names 
of tramettes, and of organsins, will be better called 
fine silks. All have their particular use, either for 
weaving, for hosiery, for the warp of stuffs, for crape, 
gauze, blondes, and white tulles. The doupions or 
sewing silk, come fromdouble cocons. The chiques, 
the skins supply silk for ribands and plush. Indeed 
the perforated cocons, the shells that remain after 
the silk is reeled off, the cotes, [stalky threads, first 
wound off,] the scrapings of the brooms, or of the 
boughs, all those cocons called frisons, moresques, 
prepared by beating or breaking on a stick of wood, 
boiled in soap-suds, after being carded and spun, 
make coconilles, fantasie, flurt silk and welt, gener- 
ally comprised under the name of fleuret, [or ferret,] 
used in all work, for purposes connected with 
hosiery. 

But, among the different denominations used to 
designate the quality of silk, the greatest part is only 
the result of the preparations or changes that it has 
been made to undergo for the fabrication of tissues, 
or various stuffs of which they form the first woof. 
A substance essentially gummy, the silk should have 
an appearance bright and smooth; it ought to be even 
and glossy, as the handsomest varnish. Industry, 
aided by mechanical process, has been able to give 
it the color and form necessary to the purposes for 
which we intend to use it. 

Over all the exterior surface of cocons is spread a 
11 



122 

silky substance, extremely fine, delicate, and light, 
more or less white or yellowish, which is commonly 
designated under the name of floss. It is this which 
gives, after having been carded or combed, the fleuret 
[ferret,] of first quality. As for the inferior fleuret or 
that of the second quality, we get it from refuse 
cocons, that cannot be reeled, and from what remains 
about the chrysalis of those that have been reeled. 
After having put together all that the cocons can 
furnish, it is steeped some hours in common water, 
which must be changed every twenty-four hours; 
afterward, be cast into another water, with a small 
quantity of potash in it, or of lye, leaving it there to 
soak some hours, be washed anew, and dried, in 
order to card or comb it, as has been said above. 
Whether of the first or second quality, the fleuret is 
then spun on a spinning-wheel or spindle; and after 
having undergone boiling, after having been put to 
the dye, whatever its color, it is called filoselle. 

All silks reeled from cocons, and made into skeins, 
are yet far from being glossy: on the contrary, they 
are for the most part uneven, and full of roughness, 
produced by foreign substances which adhere to them. 
It will be impossible to use them. On coming from 
the wheel they are called raw silk. In this state it is 
used in commerce, from the first hands. Afterward, 
it is necessary to submit it to the mill, that it may be 
made even, flexible, compact, glossy and brilliant and 
susceptible of taking the dye. It is considered as 
raw, [ecrue,] when it has been simply twisted, by the 
mill. Boiled silks, [soies cuites,] are those that have 
been made to boil a longer or shorter time, to reel them 
more easily. Ungumming them, [decreusage,] consists 



123 

in subjecting them to boiling in soap-suds. It is 
also absolutely necessary, to plunge them in the dye. 
As for those that are prepared for making stuffs, they 
are generally all dressed by machinery. Tram is 
made of single, double, sometimes triple threads, of 
raw silk, formed on spindles: often to make tram, 
we use ovalee* silk, that is to say, twisted in many 
threads joined, by particular machines. As to 
hair silk, [singles,] it is only raw silk, prepared in 
single threads. Organsin, or organsined silk, is the 
principal thread, with which is made the first warp of 
all stuffs. On Account of the strength it must have, 
because it bears a great strain, we are obliged to 
make it of two or more threads, twisted together with 
two or three turns, [reprises.] This operation, useless 
for tram, constitutes what is called dressing, [appret.] 
The organsining of silk, is so essential to the 
manufacturer, that without it, it would be impossible 
to make any thing. It remains raw. The machine 
to which it is submitted, invented at JBologne, im- 
proved in Piedmont, has been carried to the greatest 
degree of perfection by the artists of Lyons, whose 
raw silks rival all others known in commerce. 

* Dressed on an instrument called an oval. [Trans.} 



124 



EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE. 

SHORT NOTICE OF ALL THE INSTRUMENTS THAT ARE CON- 
SIDERED USEFUL, NECESSARY, OR INDISPENSABLE FOR 
RAISING SILK WORMS. 

Fig. 1. Echenilloir, worm-killer, made with two 
blades like those of large shears, fixed at the end of 
a pole, longer or shorter; they are made to act by 
means of a string, after having a point of support, on 
the branch which has the nest of caterpillars. What 
the gardeners called a volant may be used for the 
same purpose. And they use a pruning-knife when 
they can reach them without mounting on the tree. 

Fig. 2. But if we have waited too long, and the 
worms hatched are scattered over the trees, we may 
use a pan of iron or copper, also fixed to a handle, 
longer or shorter, and carry it every where that the 
caterpillars are collected, after having lighted some 
moist straw, sprinkled with sulphur reduced to powder, 
so that they fall and are destroyed. 

Fig. 3. A Scraper, by means of which it is very 
easy to detach the eggs of the silk worms adhering to 
the wet linens; which we may pass between the eggs 
that are fixed on them, holding it with a firm and 
steady hand. In this manner we detach a great 
many in a short time. 

Fig. 4. Thermometer, an instrument of first 
necessity in all ateliers of silk worms. We must 
select those that are well made, and of mercury 
rather than spirits of wine. 



125 

Fig. 5. A Stove. They are made in so many 
ways, they have been pushed to such degree of per- 
fection, that it will be difficult to point out those to 
which we should give the preference. To regulate 
at pleasure the heat produced with the least possible 
fuel, preserving the control of it so as to augment or 
diminish it according to need, by means of doors and 
dampers fitted to it; this is the end of the use of stoves 
to warm ateliers, in which they may be multiplied 
according to need and the use of the atelier. 

Fig. 6. Box to hatch the eggs. They are made 
of various sizes: we may have them of pasteboard or 
very thin pine; but we must be careful to number 
them very plainly on all their sides. 

Fig. 7. Hurdles or Boards. We cover them with 
paper to place the silk worms on. The best are made 
with cane. Their bottom ought not to be too close: 
the paper dries better by receiving the contact of the 
air above and below. Their length and breadth must 
be proportioned to the extent of the atelier, and the 
quantity of worms we must place on them. Like the 
boxes they should be numbered very plainly. 

Fig. 8. Spoon or Spatula, with which we may 
remove the eggs to every side without crushing them: 
the form given to this instrument renders the operation 
very easy. 

Fig. 9. Transport Tables. They must be a foot 
broad — be long in proportion, and surrounded on three 
sides only by an edging raised six or eight lines, at a 
medium. They are fixed with a handle, to make them 
more easy to carry; made of thin boards and very 
smooth. We rest them on the broad sides of the 
hurdles, so that the silk worms may rise on them with- 
out rinding any obstacles. 
11* 



126 

Fig. 10. Ventilators. Every where that they can 
be fixed, they should be made so that the board which 
serves to open or shut them may slide easily in two 
grooves, by which it is held in place, rising and falling 
when the ventilator is fixed in a wall or window, and 
sliding on the ceiling when it is there. 

Fig. 11. Punching Tool, by which we may, by 
striking on the upper surface, perforate a great number 
of sheets of paper at the same time, put together and 
placed on a block. We may also, instead of perforated 
paper, use coarse netting; it answers perfectly the 
object proposed, that of making the worms rise upon 
it, in order to place them where necessary. 

Fig. 12. Iron Hook, bent so as to be able to raise 
the worms easily, when they are so small that there 
is danger of crushing them with the fingers. 

Fig. 13. A Chest, to transport the worms to a 
distance when they are hatched, in order to continue 
their raising. This consists of small shelves placed 
one over another, which may be drawn out and re- 
placed at pleasure. They are filled with sheets of 
paper, on which they are spread, and by means of 
corresponding slides on the two sides may be increased 
or diminished at pleasure. We fix to it two leather 
straps, so as to carry it like a tray. 

Fig. 14. A Knife, large and strong enough to cut 
easily the mulberry leaves. 

Fig. 15. A Double Cutter, which may be passed 
over the leaves already cut, to make them more fine, 
and to multiply the surfaces and edges; an operation 
absolutely necessary in the first and second age. 

Fig. 16. A larger Cutter, somewhat like that used 
for cutting straw. By its means we can, in a very 



127 

short time, divide in two or three, the leaf that is to be 
distributed to the worms in the three first days after 
their third moulting. 

Fig. 17. A small Broom made of millet, birch, or 
any other small twigs. It is useful and even neces- 
sary to distribute the leaves equally on the hurdles. 

Fig. 18. Common opening in the bottom of doors. 
It may be opened and closed at will, by means of two 
slides, between which moves up and down a small trap 
always fixed to it. 

Fig. 19. A square Basket, of sufficient breadth 
and depth, surmounted by a hook in the middle of the 
handle, by which it is made to moye and act on every 
side, the length and in the middle of the hurdles, with- 
out falling or rubbing their lower edges. 

Fig. 20. A small Cricket, serving to elevate the 
person that distributes the leaves on the second rows 
of hurdles, and prevent them being overset. 

Fig. 21. A small Ladder, made so as to be easily 
carried about, whenever necessary in order to reach 
the upper hurdles. We make a number sufficient for 
the persons wanting them. They must be light and 
convenient. 

Fig. 22. Barometer. It serves to show the state 
of the air, and the degree of moisture in the atelier. 

Fig. 23. Disinfecting Apparatus. We may have 
it larger or smaller, and keep it more or less closely 
covered, according to need, by the force of the pressure 
on its stopper of polished glass. 

Fig. 24. A Tray. Whatever its form, it must be 
light, convenient, and so made as not to lose or let 
escape the dirt or excrement that it serves to carry 
out of the atelier. 



128 

Fig. 25. Utensil to collect the dirt After having 
first cleaned the hurdles, we sweep on it, with the 
small broom, all that remains on the papers. 

Fig. 26. A Frame on which to place and transport 
the moths. The cloth which is laid on it may be re- 
newed at will. In the middle is a handle to manage it 
more easily. 

Fig. 27. A Box to contain the papilios and prevent 
them beating themselves with their wings, by keeping 
them constantly in the dark. The cover is pierced 
with an infinite number of small holes, to give them 
air. 

Fig. 28. A small Horse (or frame) disposed to put 
the female moths on, at the time of their laying, to 
collect their eggs. It is made to be opened and shut 
at will, in order to fill less space, and so as to be kept 
without trouble to be used in following years. 

Fig. 29. A Frame of twine, suspended so that the 
air may easily circulate about the cloths or papers on 
which the eggs are to be preserved from one season 
to another. When it is conveniently situated, we 
keep on it the eggs as cool and dry as necessary to 
prevent danger of their alteration or decay. 

Fig. 30. Plan of a small Atelier, (or coconry,) with 
a stove in the middle, and two chimneys in the corners. 

Fig. 31. Plan more detailed of an Atelier large 
enough to hold five or six hundred pounds of cocons. 
It has four chimneys in the corners, two stoves in the 
middle, and another opposite to the door. 

END. 



NOTE. 

BY THE TRANSLATOR. 

\Extr act from New England Farmer, vol. 8, p. 333.] 

iS Lyons, France, January, 1830. An assay of a quantity of 
American raw silk lately took place, by request of the Chamber of 
Commerce. It results that the specimen sent from Philadelphia 
is admirably adapted to all the uses of fabrication. Its degree of 
fineness is sixteen dwts., so that it would produce singles of fifty 
dwts., or organsin of thirty-two, or tram of thirty, a quality of 
silk extremely rare in our country. American silk is fine, strong, 
good, regular, clean, of fine color; in a word, it unites all the 
qualities that can be wished for. Its market price, in the state of 
raw silk well reeled, according to its different qualities, well pre- 
pared, would be twenty-six francs a pound, and the sale at Lyons 
would be very easy, particularly if there were a constant supply 
of bales weighing from one hundred to one hundred and fifty lbs." 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

Page. 

Chap. 1. Of Silk Worms, li 

Chap. 2. Of the Food of Silk Worms, - - - 16 

Chap. 3. Of the Cultivation of the Mulberry, - 30 

Chap. 4. Of the Hatching of the Silk Worms, - 41 

Chap. 5. Of the Coconery, ------ 50 

Chap. 6. The different Ages of the Silk Worm, - 58 

Chap. 7. Diseases observed in Silk Worms, 

during the whole period of raising, - 101 

Chap. 8. Means of Remedying them, - - - 111 

Chap. 9. Manner of Stifling the Chrysalis in 
the Cocon, and of Reeling the 
Silk, - - - - - 115 

Explanation of the Plate, 124 

Note, 129 



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